Ayvar Gabidullin, Business Development Manager at Slotegrator, believes that big data has a vital role to play in keeping players safe online, making them less open to fraud and the risks associated with problem gambling.
No one is immune from fraud — except those who know how to prevent it. To do that, online casino or sportsbook operators need the ability to make the most of big data, sifting through the endless stream of information and sorting out what matters and what doesn’t. The updated anti-fraud module in Slotegrator’s new platform uses big data to minimise the risks that online casinos face.
For most players, visiting a traditional brick-and-mortar casino is an anonymous experience; they’re briefly greeted when they walk in the door, they play slots or blackjack for as long as their time or budget allows, and they leave. From the house’s perspective, no player is different from any other. The royal treatment is reserved for high rollers, who might get free drinks, hotel rooms, and other perks; everyone else is just part of a faceless mass.
With the power of big data, though, online casinos can give every player a taste of the VIP treatment.
Starting with collecting data upon sign-up, casinos can build detailed player profiles, tracking which games they play, what time of day they play them, how long their sessions are, how much they like to bet, and more.
This has obvious implications for player safety. First, quickly processing sign-up data can enable casinos to prevent underage and excluded players from creating accounts. What’s more, by tracking players’ habits, casinos can identify warning signs of potential problem gambling behaviour and act accordingly.
“Unfortunately, online casinos are popular targets for fraud”
By building player profiles, operators can tailor their marketing efforts to not just entire sets of players (eg males ages 25-30) but individuals (eg Vinnie Franklin, male, 38, loves blackjack and betting on cricket). The casino can then send personalised offers and bonuses at the right time, such as after a losing streak or when the player’s been away for a while, as well as personalising the casino lobby.
Casinos also make the most of the data at their fingertips when they design VIP programs and other elements of gamification to create more immersive experiences for their players.
Aside from facilitating business growth, data is also a powerful tool when it comes to safeguarding a platform’s security.
Unfortunately, online casinos are popular targets for fraud. Most commonly, this takes the form of players creating multiple accounts. Individuals and even syndicates use multiple computers, VPNs, and false identities to set up large numbers of accounts so they can abuse the welcome bonuses that casinos commonly offer.
They sign up for a new account, receive the bonus, play through the rollover requirements with a high-RTP game, then withdraw the “winnings” and repeat the process with another assumed identity (some bonus abusers will pay friends, family, and even strangers to use their identities).
To fight this kind of fraud, automation isn’t just a convenience. It’s completely necessary. With thousands of players, sifting through all that data manually would be simply unmanageable. Instead, operators need a tool that can quickly compare new data to established data sets from different perspectives and render actionable suggestions.
In other words, as long as the technology to read people’s minds doesn’t exist, we need artificial intelligence to tell us which new sign-ups are throwing up red flags.
“Operators also can, and should, set notifications for suspicious activity”
Slotegrator, an online casino solution developer and gaming content aggregator with 10 years of industry experience, has recently updated its gambling platform solution, including its anti-fraud module. The module protects gambling projects’ financial security, collecting information about any risky moves or suspicious activities, which facilitates risk management and guards against fraud.
The anti-fraud module collects data and stores it in a well-structured database that operators can easily analyse.
All the collected information and aggregated statistics are structured in a simple and clear database for operators to easily process and analyse. Operators also can, and should, set notifications for suspicious activity.
If a player hits the duplication threshold — that is, if the same piece of data appears in too many different places — the operator is notified that the new account should be investigated or blocked. This means, for example, that even if bonus abusers use different names and addresses, they can still be identified if they use the same IP address; a dead giveaway that should prompt an immediate freeze on the account while the operator investigates.
The platform also makes the most of big data with its business intelligence module. The BI module allows operators to process huge volumes of information for any chosen period of time — at any time — quickly and easily, including player behaviour, game history, bonuses, deposits, etc. With the module’s easily digestible reports, operators can make informed decisions about the direction of their business.