Deep Dive: How Online Gaming Platforms Can Fight Fraudsters, Customer Defection

Online gaming and gambling platforms provide engaging and enticing experiences for users, but their efforts are shattered if clunky onboarding practices stand in the way. This means they must ensure the entire process is simple, smooth and speedy to maintain customers’ interest. 

According to a recent report, more than 25 percent of potential online gambling customers abandoned their account opening processes because they were too lengthy or complex. Forty percent of those surveyed said opening their accounts took at least 10 minutes, and 10 percent said the process took longer than an hour. A separate survey found that 15 percent of online gamblers felt onboarding should be faster, while 35 percent said they wanted to provide fewer personal details during registration. 

Improving upon onboarding processes can be tricky, though. Gaming and gambling platforms must adhere to tight regulations to remain compliant and keep users safe, and they cannot afford to sacrifice security – even at the expense of convenience. To top it all off, the global online gambling market is slated to grow to more than $74 billion in revenue by 2023, which makes it necessary to balance streamlined onboarding with robust fraud prevention efforts. 

Tackling Fraud 

Gaming and gambling platforms must also confront various issues, ranging from preventing underage users from signing up to thwarting more serious abuses. If they aren’t vigilant, they risk allowing fraudsters to access users’ accounts to seize funds, create accounts to launder money or use stolen or false identities to access platforms – even after they’ve been blocked. In other cases, users could collude to fix games’ outcomes, ruining participants’ experiences. 

Resources are available to help platforms fight back, and such efforts can take place behind the scenes without bothering customers. Efforts to curb cybercriminals’ collusion include checking the histories associated with certain IP addresses, devices and locations to see if they are associated with past misbehaviors. Platforms can also determine whether multiple accounts use the same IP address or device. Such activities could signal that parties behind the accounts are working together to unfairly determine games’ outcomes.

Leveraging tools like artificial intelligence to assess customers’ selfie videos and IDs could also ensure onboarding processes are swiftly and securely handled. Such automated scans can discover documentation issues that suggest falsification, while facial liveness testing can help monitor for spoofed selfies. Human employees can also step in when cases prove too ambiguous to be solved through technology alone. 

These speedy verification measures could help online gambling and gaming platforms stay compliant and protect their customers from fraud, while preventing them from losing users to sign-in frictions. When it comes to ensuring their bottom lines, these platforms can’t afford to gamble with their customers’ onboarding experiences.