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Attempts at online gambling fraud in the United States fell 16 percent this year, TransUnion told Online Poker Report today. That’s a good sign, but these rates are still higher than in Europe, TransUnion’s Declan Raines told OPR.
Raines, the U.S.-based head of gaming at Chicago-based TransUnion, said such attempts at fraud in the United States often take the form of abuse of online casino bonuses and online sports betting by consumers. They also include dumping online poker chips by players, he said.
Raines has put online gambling fraud in perspective in the United States, as his company released a new investigation yesterday. In its 2022 digital fraud trend analysis, TransUnion found that suspected digital fraud attempts against legal gambling operators around the world increased by 50.1% from the first quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022. Similarly in the U.S., the predominant form of fraud is promotional abuse.
Meanwhile, the investigation found that suspected attempts at global online fraud against all industries decreased by 22.6% during this same time period. In the US, it is down 23.1%.
European operators have more experience with fraud
Shai Cohen, senior vice president of global fraud solutions at TransUnion, said in an announcement yesterday:
“Sophisticated scammers check the pressure of which industries have increased fraud prevention measures and, as a result, turn to new industries if efforts are being thwarted. “It’s critical that during this downturn, companies focus on optimizing the customer experience for good customers.”
Raines said the U.S. online gambling market is just that new industry.
Attempts to defraud U.S. online gambling operators are high right now, Raines said. That’s because industry professionals here are just learning, he said.
European online gambling operators have more experience and are therefore more successful in detecting and preventing such attempts. That’s because their markets are mature, Raines told OPR.
He added that TransUnion only works with legal online betting operators. These statistics therefore do not include fraud against, or against, illegal offshore sites.
Declan Raines, U.S. gaming chief, TransUnion
How to Compare Online Gambling Fraud in the United States |
Today, TransUnion provided OPR with online fraud rates in the U.S. compared to global rates during the first quarter of 2022 compared to the first quarter of 2021.
The interannual measure is broken down as follows, TransUnion told OPR:
“Globally, suspicious online fraud attempts fell by 22.6%.
“However, suspicious online fraud attempts in the global gambling industry increased by 50.1%
“In the U.S., suspected online fraud attempts fell 23.12%, and suspicious online fraud attempts in the U.S. gambling industry fell 16.18%.
TransUnion works to prevent online gambling fraud
As a consumer credit reporting agency, TransUnion works with businesses and consumers to try to prevent fraud.
Among the services it offers to online gambling operators is the identification of “suspicious users, devices, and transactions.”
As a result, TransUnion is finding that one of the forms of attempted fraud against US online gambling operators comes from members of exclusion lists who use different emails to try to bet.
However, the overall numbers of fraud attempts for U.S. online casinos, online poker and online sports betting are almost the same, Raines said.
In other words, fraud attempts are not the highest in online poker, in terms of the vertical prevalence of US online gambling, Raines said. This is true even though everyone is experiencing an attempt at abuse of bonuses, while only online poker is a target for chip dumping, he said.
What is chip dumping and why is it a problem?
Tile dumping, as Raines explains, is when two players collide to cause one gambler to lose chips against the other on purpose.
While it’s a common tactic in money laundering, it can also be a way to transfer a bonus to a conspirator. (Editor’s note: It can also be used by players who act as a team in a poker tournament. In this case, the victims of fraud are the other players participating in the tournament, rather than the venue).
Gibraltar-based 888poker said chip dumps will have their funds confiscated and will be banned permanently.
The online poker operator, which also has a U.S. presence in partnership with the WSOP, added that sometimes innocent players are also caught in crackdown on chip dumping:
“Naturally, the smartest chip dumpers try to hide their actions. To begin with, they try to make their dumps look like legitimate hands. (There are no high ten calls, for example.) tokens to a specific account, also take care to splash large amounts of tokens in the direction of random players at the table. (To give the impression that they are dragging money against everyone.) Random recipients of their landfills may also be involved in the chip dumping scam and have their accounts marked by the site. “
