How Online Casinos Detect Bonus Abuse and Multi-Accounting?

A popular way for casinos to prevent fraud and money laundering is to perform Know Your Customer (KYC) checks when you attempt to make your first withdrawal. These checks require you to supply the casino with some sort of identification in order for them to confirm you are who you say you are.

The casino may ask you to provide a copy of your passport or driving licence, a bank statement or utility bill and a way to confirm that the payment method you’re using is really yours.

By implementing these checks, the casino can confirm that you are using one account, going by your own name and personal information, and that you are attempting to withdraw your own winnings. As the casino then handles all documents and has to verify their validity, it has a direct influence on each transaction that goes through the site.

Just like many other sites on the internet, online casinos are no strangers to using IP address tracking and geolocation tools. Of course, this is all laid out in terms and conditions pages and is displayed transparently. By knowing where you are playing from through tracking your location, the casino can make sure that you only have one account per household. This is often a direct clause in the terms and conditions of a welcome offer.

Individual IP address tracking further allows casinos to see which devices you use to play and can keep an eye on anything that might look suspicious. This is because every device has a unique IP address, so in combination with tracking your location, casinos can use this information to ensure that only one bettor is playing from one location. The casino can then confirm which devices belong to that player. Any consistent anomaly would flag something early on. 

Casinos may track your digital fingerprint and online behaviour as a whole. This is to recognise your common online activity, such as your hobbies and interests, and which sites you visit most. This builds an online profile for you, which can then be cross-referenced if your behaviour looks suspicious at any point. You will have to consent to allow a casino to track your data, and you can choose to opt out if this method feels too invasive. However, this does give the casino more information about you to help prevent identity fraud.

Another thing online casinos can track is what payment method you use on the site. Combined with other information such as geolocation and IP address tracking, the casino can tell where your payment methods are being used. This means that if someone is using the same card or e-wallet as you, but from a different geolocation and IP address, then the casino will be able to see this and flag it as suspicious.

Casinos monitor your betting history on the site to analyse these patterns too. While players do change things up every now and again, we are all creatures of habit. By using an algorithm to store the history of your betting, casinos can notice any irregular changes. This means the casino can detect whether someone takes over your account or if you yourself are violating bonus terms and conditions more easily. The casino can check the size of your bets and how often you make them, which alerts the casino if these patterns change significantly.

By having access to your account information, casinos can see if other accounts are using the same information. Being able to spot whether two accounts signed up with the same email address can help the casino track potential cases of bonus abuse. If a casino can also detect accounts made with the same email on other sites, then the casino can find a player’s history on other sites. This can help casinos crack down on repeat offenders and be aware of that player’s potential risk.