Bonus Abuse/Fraud

[golfbettingsystem]

Had a few, occasional spells of bonus abuse/fraud on certain programs in the past that are fairly easy to spot even to the untrained eye - ie very similar deposit patterns, username format etc - which tend to come in fits and starts. Question is, how does this still happen with KYC?

Presumably when it comes to withdrawing funds, there’s some kind of checking done in conjunction with KYC which spots that they’re the same addresses/payment methods and rejects them. If it doesn’t spot them then the KYC process can’t be particularly robust or these abusers are working round it somehow.

[baldidiot]

Gnomes have been used for years, that would get around any KYC check.

Could also be unrelated parties following the same advice or guidance (ie. from a matched betting site).

[PromoteCasino]

Are you seeing it in on a particular brand or overall?

[golfbettingsystem]

Gnomes have been used for years, that would get around any KYC check.

Could also be unrelated parties following the same advice or guidance (ie. from a matched betting site).

Yeah did wonder if it was a matched betting site. Had one about a year ago where the usernames were almost sequential which sniffed of a bot/automated process of some sort. Guess there are different ways for them to skin the same cat.

[golfbettingsystem]

Are you seeing it in on a particular brand or overall?

Seeing some suspicious numbers on a single brand at the moment. Have raised with the affiliate manager so we shall see, just surprises me still that it still happens with the additional checking that goes on nowadays.

[wonderpunter]

There are actually organisations that pay regular people a % of their winnings to use their ID, banks etc.. KYC

[golfbettingsystem]

There are actually organisations that pay regular people a % of their winnings to use their ID, banks etc.. KYC

Not seen that before - that’s mad, how can you police that kind of thing?!

[mathematician]

Probably hard to police if done well.

I recall chatting to one bloke who ran a bet placement service.
He was not really about bonus abuse and more so about assisting punters who had terrible stakes limitations imposed on them getting on more decent stakes. He would charge such punters a % of turnover and then the action would be placed via series of stooge accounts. The bet placer would manage all bet placing etc. Each stooge would have a virtual machine dedicated to them to assist in trail masking. Stooges got paid a % of turnover ( obviously a lesser percentage than bet placer was charging the real punters )

There is probably a degree of bonus abuse in the above as each stooge would get some new account bonus but it was not the prime purpose.

No doubt others will be much more focused on the bonus aspect alone.

Lower tech versions of bet placement are in play as well with some who will run around shops placing bets on behalf of a backer.

A lot of the above would probably disappear if bookies were less prone to think accepting a max stake of 23 pence on a horse was an honorable way to treat punters.

One way to make bonus abuse disappear would be to totally stop offering bonuses.

Radical I know but imagine two worlds

World A - Bonus offering to new accounts is illegal. All operators are therefore equal in that respect. Zero competitive advantage over rivals can be gained by offering a bigger introductory bonus.

Operators must compete using different metrics. How about a focus in offering the best service to customers.

World B - More so the current world where operators feel forced to keep up with the Jones in terms of bonus offering. Bonuses go up to max sustainable levels and provide decent attraction to bonus abusers. Lots of bonus abuse paranoia from the operators and probably bad PR as well as honest punters get labeled as abusers when all they do is comply with the rules of what is laid out in bonus terms.

Lots of promoters as well will stress the size of the bonus in £ terms. Many affiliate sites in fact will order by bonus size etc.

This puts more pressure to max bonus size offering. One par for the course trick there is to have a big headline figure. Then terms and conditions that are so terrible and onerous that the punter chance of fulfilling them is pretty slim.

Some casinos would be terrible for that. Picture crappy rubbish skin casino with nothing at all unique about it and nothing new or interesting to offer the world. Probably poor customer service as well. It markets ( assisted by promoters ) a big headline bonus figure
backed by terrible onerous turnover terms.

Is the world a better place for such operators being there?

Personally I'd prefer a style A world where such operators were less likely to exist.

Bonus style I think are the worst?

This that have terms that insist on a large multiple of turnover especially when additional terms limit time.

I suspect if one put together a few boffins from gambling addition back ground they might suggest that such bonus style is in effect the operator training the punter to mimic the style of problem gamblers. Lots of turnover with no time to think due to time pressure etc. The industry as whole could improve it's overall reputation is such stuff were banned.

Some sort of legal ban on bonuses might actually be good for many of the more legitimate operations who compete on service quality etc.

But it would require legislation so that all operators were singing from the same hymn sheet. It would be a tough call for an individual CEO to drop all their bonuses when their competitors are seeking to gain market share via offering their headline bonus figures.

If I wanted tog et elected here on GPWA I might suggest all money saved on bonus should be used to pay affiliates more

More real life however may be a three way split of savings between operator, promoter and loyal operator customers.

I can see potential for mid range action as well. eg Picture some operator CEO who want's to differentiate themselves a little.
Perhaps they might wish to put more emphasis on ongoing customer loyalty style bonus as opposed to new account bonus.
Better a system applied equally to all customers so they can't be accused of picking out VIP's whom they encourage to gamble more etc. VIP of course is short term for very idiotic punter

Get a customer and keep them happy as a long term customer is often forgot age old sage advice.
I suspect in some spots there is too much weight of important put on market share. IF head boss tell some numpty market share is how he himself will be judged then mr numpty will deem excellent and brilliant a string of punters who take a free bet and run as those accounts will boost the market share figures he presents. Some similarity on the affiliate side with some as well. Quota's and the likes deem numerous new account referrals that free bet and run as more valuable than a smaller number of good customers. Probably down to some numpty sitting in an isolated room fixated with market share figures that he will be judged on from his above. But I digress.

Anyhow an operator who did indeed start to prioritise more customer positive experience and loyalty way above new account bonus headline figures could find themselves ahead of the curve perhaps if ever some future day all intro bonuses were indeed banned.

Just my own personal semi unusual take on it all.


Cheers
Mick

[Ada Lovelace]

It says a lot when the affiliates do a better job of identifying bad customers than the operators. This mirrors my experience working with operators.
I would check your link hasn't made it to a bonus abuse forum. This is common if you are offering more value than going direct. Otherwise a single multi-accounting operation may be using your link as a way of blending in since most bonus abusers will go direct.

KYC is focused on identifying that the player is who they say they are and that they are of legal age and jurisdiction. Most KYC is automated by cross referencing information with public records, if this is not possible the operator will request documents. The process primarily responsible for identifying multi-accounting is the fraud product that is typically responsible for device, Ip and payment correlation. The leading fraud product has world class sales people and has a hold on the industry, despite there being more innovative products available. All experienced multi-accounting operations know how to stay undetected with this old tech.

These groups are organised. KYC docs are requested at the point of recruiting a new identity, and periodically going forward as they are required. A better question is why can't these accounts be linked? Because with the right understanding of their behaviours, most of them can be identified. The reason they aren't identified is because the industry is ignorant to the scale of the issue, it is built on 10-20 year old legacy tech, it lacks data centralisation and doesn't record a lot of useful data.


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Ada Lovelace