Gambling Industry Report

iovation, the leading provider of device intelligence for authentication and fraud prevention, today published its 2018 Gambling Industry Report.

This comprehensive industry-focused 25 page report is designed to provide insights and guidance to igaming operators and platform providers who are seeking new avenues to improve the experience for their most valuable players while keeping the next generation of sophisticated fraud rings at bay.

The 2018 Gambling Industry Report from iovation is based on detailed analysis of more than 450 million transactions and aggregated from over 100 gambling operator and platform customers over the course of 2017. The report identifies and explores three key trends driving the igaming market:

1.Prioritizing the Player Experience: While limiting fraud and abuse remains a priority for operators and platform providers, they must not do so at the expense of their players’ experience. Innovations in predictive analytics powered by device intelligence and machine learning are helping to proactively identify potential threats at log-in but can also help identify trusted players who could become tomorrow’s VIP players.

2.Plan for Regulatory Uncertainty: The impacts of forthcoming data privacy regulations like The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are already being felt by operators who must identify new data minimization strategies for combating fraud or else face potential crippling fines. Beyond GDPR, social responsibility mandates such as Player Self Exclusion (PSE) are forcing operators to assure regulators that they can protect vulnerable players.

3.Prepare for Unconventional Attacks: From automated bot attacks to orchestrated account takeovers (ATO), fraudsters are acquiring new techniques and methodologies at a rapid pace. iGaming businesses must not only fortify their own security strategies but also embrace a cross-industry collaborative approach to stay one step ahead of organized fraud rings.

“The igaming industry is among the most mature of all the industries we serve when it comes to identifying and preventing fraud. However, as detailed in this report, fraudsters will always find the path of least resistance to extract as much value from the most vulnerable targets,” said Eddie Glenn, Product Marketing Manager for iovation.

“Analysis of our gambling transactions from 2017 shows that operators must accommodate new player preferences, making their games easily accessible on a variety of device types and platforms. And they must do so without creating unnecessary friction on the path to play.”

Other highlights from the report include:

•For the first time, iOS held the largest share of online gambling transactions (pg 8), with Android just a few percentage points behind. Will Google’s decision to allow real-money gambling shift the balance of power in 2018?
•Reports of player self exclusion (PSE) more than doubled (pg 15), from 96,000 reports submitted in 2015 to 205,000 in 2017, indicating that operators are getting serious about keeping self-excluded players out.
•‘Cheating fraud’ increased by 10X in just four years (pg. 11). Are there ten times more cheaters or are iGaming operators ten times better at spotting them?

About iovation

Headquartered in Portland, OR, iovation was founded with a simple guiding mission: to make the Internet a safer place for people to conduct business. Since 2004, the company has been delivering against that goal, helping large brands protect their end users against online fraud and abuse that’s increasingly more common in today’s hacker culture. Using an intuitive and high availability product suite that focuses on authentication and fraud prevention, iovation identifies trustworthy customers through an advanced combination of device authentication and real-time risk evaluation.

Armed with the world’s largest device-based fraud prevention database, iovation safeguards tens of millions of transactions against fraudulent activities each day. And the world’s foremost fraud experts regularly contribute their learnings as members of iovation’s Fraud Force Community, an exclusive virtual crime-fighting network.