Multi-accounts, the industry-standard and KYC.

[Thekool1s]

Prelude:
So a few days ago, user @amelik2 created an accusation thread against FJ (Fortune Jack). Claiming that FJ had basically scammed out around 5 BTC from him with a fake case of multi-accounting. Due to some gap in communications, a potential case was being developed. Basically all FJ initially did was replied with a Screenshot of their TOS and bunch of IP addresses which was pretty vague on how they detected multi-accounts.



The initial impression I got by reading their thread was that only IP logs were being used to establish the case for multi-accounting. If you have the slightest bit of knowledge regarding networking or how ISPs work in general you will know that there are a very limited number of IPs out there. Basically we can't have a unique IP address for each and every one of us... Most of the time an IP address is being shared among thousands if not tens of thousands of users and it isn't an optimal way to establish that people are multi-accounting. You can read more about the subject here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4_address_exhaustion

What I initially thought was that this could be exploited by any casino which has similar TOS, Imagine this. You are the casino, you establish a case for multi-accounts by merely using IP logs, according to your TOS. Let's say you are running low on the bankroll and some user X wins a large sum of Bitcoins and you can't pay that user out. What you can potentially do is bail yourself out by making a fake case against user X by merely showing countless other accounts which have been made by the same IP address, you could even make fake entries in your database to make an even stronger case for yourself. if you had been running for a few years you won't even have to worry about your reputation as one-off cases usually are dismissed by the community. Looks like a lucrative business doesn't it? You keep making money with the house edge and if someone hits a homerun your TOS has got you covered...

However, this wasn't the case with FJ. User @amelik2 was originally betting from his alt account @PatDugan. He got banned on his @PatDugan account, ^{( you can read about why in the original FJ thread )}. He then proceeded to revive his inactive account, which had been inactive for 8 months the same day he got banned and was matched with the same IP address and same betting behaviour. He went on to win around 5 BTC but was then later denied the payout as the evidence was pretty compelling. Something which I agree with but this thread isn't about the @amelik2's case or FJ but rather the industry standard of how cases for multi-accounting are made and how you are already gambling your money away before you even place a bet on some random Crypto casino online.

Multi-accounts and the industry-standard:
Most online casinos dealing with FIAT require you to perform a KYC before you can deposit or place a bet on their platform. This process should weed out potential cases of fraud later down the line. It is industry standard for a reason because it works. The question is should Crypto Casinos/Bookmakers adopt the same standards for detecting multi-accounts and preventing fraud? TBH I'm not entirely sure. The very purpose of these casinos/bookmakers is to facilitate the crypto community. If they are going to implement a KYC before deposit then there isn't a unique selling point for them. Having said that there is no way to prevent abusers from abusing their promos if they don't use something like KYC... The UIDs ^{( they are like IMEIs but for PCs )} can be manipulated ^{( something I suggested in the FJ thread but requires some knowledge to do it )}, IPs, as discussed above, aren't the best way to link multiple accounts. KYC does seem to do the trick for both the user and the service provider as it kinda ensures nobody is getting screwed end of the day.

I'm interested in hearing the opinion of you guys. Should these casinos adopt a KYC first policy, the industry-standard? If not then there is nothing stopping them to screw users over and vice versa. Without KYC both are parties are at risk of getting screwed over by each other. The users could find ways to create multiple accounts and casinos can bail themselves out by creating fake cases. So having a KYC first policy does seem to work.

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[tyKiwanuka]

Nice post and interesting topic

I have done countless KYC with FIAT bookies and of course never had any problems with being accused of multi-accounting (I was harassed with other issues, but that is not the topic here). So indeed the industry standard does work and even protects yourself against the bookmaker - but both only to a certain extent.

Looking from a (FIAT) bookmakers perspective, KYC isn't the holy grail though. The reason to do multi-accounting is mostly for new customers bonuses or some other kind of free money. And because there is quite a lot of free money to get, and people would do a lot to get this money, even bookmakers with strict KYC have to take additional steps to keep multi-accounting at bay.
If you take a look at the T&C`s for some first deposit bonus, you will see a lot of restrictions. Certain countries with a history of multi-accounting are excluded, deposits with Skrill/Neteller are excluded, the rollover requirements have been upped. Bookmakers had to put these additional conditions in place, because even with KYC, some users used very sophisticated methods to still register multiple accounts and cost them a lot of money. And even with all this, there is still abuse happening.

Now for crypto bookies, I am not sure, if this would work for them. Technically it would work of course, but economically I am not sure. As you mentioned it's their USP and you would have to figure out, why people are playing at crypto books/casinos in first place. Privacy reasons ? The odds ? Not being able to use FIAT to deposit/withdraw ?
By adopting KYC, they would probably lose a lot, if not all, of customers that value the privacy aspect of things. You might also lose a good amount of people that can't use FIAT - playing at crypto books/casinos without KYC is really easy and convenient. Registering takes a minute, depositing is easy and fast, withdrawals are fast-ish. By implementing KYC, you are building a hurdle, that a lot of these people might not be willing to jump over. Recreational players just want to gamble a bit, without too much paperwork and hassle.

For me personally, I am fine with doing KYC at more or less all FIAT bookies, but very hesitant to do with crypto bookies. Crypto bookies always have some shadiness surrounding them imo. You never know who are the people behind it, they have some weird licenses (if any) and are more likely to vanish on a daily basis or scam you. I just don't trust them that much like I do with FIAT bookies, especially with the well established ones. When I speak of trust, I am referring to A) my money being safe and B) them not selling my data.

So in the end, I think the crypto bookmakers just have to live with multi-accounting and we as betting/gambling people have to be cautious playing there, since you are always in danger of being accused of multi-accounting for the reasons you mentioned. The gambling community just has no lobby and we are always sitting at the short-end of things. Just adapt.

[dothebeats]

Good read. I like the idea of yours to which a certain account must be bound to a hardware ID, kind of like Windows activation wherein the user is only allowed to activate one product key to a certain hardware, and the rest of hardware IDs being used to log in the user will be flagged and would not be authorized to log in. Kinda limiting to the end-user but much more secure and avoids KYC. While as you say, it can be edited out, I wonder how many nerds would be willing to do so just to take advantage of gambling bonuses?

[o_e_l_e_o]

I'm not convinced that online crypto casinos enforcing KYC would solve the problem in the first place. As we've seen time and time again, people do not value their privacy at all. Even people involved in crypto currency, who you would like to think are a little bit more clued up on such matters than the general population, are more than happy to send their KYC documents to any exchange, web wallet, ICO, IEO, airdrop, whatever, that asks for it. If I were so inclined, in the next few hours and at zero cost to myself I could launch a new token by just copying the code of an existing one and giving it a different name, launch a bounty campaign on the forum for my new token, set a rule that all bounty hunters had to complete KYC, and I have little doubt I would receive dozens of sets of documents within a couple of days. All of these documents could then be used to open accounts and complete KYC proceedings on various online casinos without much hassle. If a casino asked for something specific ("a photo of you holding your ID with a piece of paper which says the casino's name", or something similar), there are people who are more than happy to sell that for a very small fee.

If the main issue is with people using multi-accounts to abuse promotions, then I would much rather use a casino with no promotions than complete KYC.

[ralle14]

If we're talking about most crypto casinos and not casinos in general i'd say somewhat adopt it similar to how the big crypto exchanges does it small limits for those accounts with no KYC then a bigger one to those who follow KYC. I doubt the same case will happen to small gamblers and if it does they're just stopping their potential loyal gamblers.
I still remember the time when my account was frozen because there's a link between me and a few users eventually the issue was cleared but still scary since it could happen to others as well.

[tyKiwanuka]

While as you say, it can be edited out, I wonder how many nerds would be willing to do so just to take advantage of gambling bonuses?

It's not necessarily nerds, it's more people that want to make easy money and probably poor-ish people for whom like 100,- Euro is a fortune.

Abusing first deposit bonuses is quite a profitable business. Some example:

You have two bookmakers, that give you a 100% first deposit bonus, 100,- max. You register with both and deposit 100,- each. You now have 400,- in total. You look for some 2-way bet, maybe an over/under bet in American Sports, because odds are always good there and low juice.

Bookmaker A: You place 200,- on the over for 1.95 odds.
Bookmaker B: You place 200,- on the under for 1.95 odds.

This will leave you with 390,- in one of these bookmakers. But you still have to rollover your initial deposit. Now you go on to a third bookmaker, which also offers a 100% first deposit bonus and deposit 100,- there, getting 100,- on top. You again bet on some 2-way bet for 200,-/200,-. If you lose the bet at the third bookmaker, you will have 580,- (300,- of your own money in total) at the one bookmaker, with some of the rollover requirements already done. Then you move to the fourth bookmaker and so on and so on.

Now imagine, you can do that with a dozen of identities, this piles up to quite some "free of risk" amount of money and, depending on where you reside, some good income/wealth. And when you are able to make lets say 1,000,- with one identity, then people are willing to provide you with their identity, if you offer them 100,- for it. They can feed their kids with that money and don't care about possible consequences then.

And all this is the reason why KYC can only do so much to prevent multi-accounting.

If the main issue is with people using multi-accounts to abuse promotions, (...)

There are other circumstances (limitations for example), where you would be inclined to do multi-accounting. In these cases, you would use multiple accounts at one bookmaker only one after the other and not at the same time though. But I would think, that 98% of multi-accounting is done to abuse promotions/bonuses.

(...), then I would much rather use a casino with no promotions than complete KYC.

Nowadays it's very hard to get some market share, if you are not doing promotions. There is casinos and bookmakers everywhere and you have to lure people to come and play at your site. The easiest way to do that, is via promotions/bonuses. You will get a lot of abusers, but also lots of "honest" players. There will be talks about you on betting forums, you will be featured on some affiliate sites and in general get way more exposure.
It's an insanely contested market, just look around in this forum, that is not even a betting forum, and see how many gambling companies are advertising here and having signature campaigns.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Nowadays it's very hard to get some market share, if you are not doing promotions.

I completely agree with this statement in the current climate. However, if we are talking about Thekool1s's proposal about reaching some kind of widespread "industry standard" regarding KYC, then it becomes another matter. If you have 99 casinos all offering 100% sign up/first deposit bonuses, provided you send them copies of all your documents, and 1 offering no promotions and but with no KYC, then I'm picking the single no KYC one every time.

Having no KYC requirements would be a major advertising boost and talking point in and of itself. This would only become more attractive over time as we know that more and more governments are starting to put the pressure on exchanges and other crypto services to hand over the KYC details of their users so they can be hounded for tax reasons.

[nutildah]

I'm interested in hearing the opinion of you guys. Should these casinos adopt a KYC first policy, the industry-standard? If not then there is nothing stopping them to screw users over and vice versa. Without KYC both are parties are at risk of getting screwed over by each other. The users could find ways to create multiple accounts and casinos can bail themselves out by creating fake cases. So having a KYC first policy does seem to work.

First off, this is a great, well-thought out post, with original content -- that is a rarity. I think most crypto casinos would rather not do a KYC first policy as that would detract a lot of potential customers. They pretty much depend on their reputation for doing the right thing, which as discussed above, isn't all that of a great indicator that things will go well in every circumstance, but in a non-mandated KYC environment, its all we have.

Big casinos like FJ, mBit Casino and Cloudbet get to set their own definitions as to what constitutes multi-accounting, trying to stride the line between saving money and continuing to enjoy a good reputation among the community.

An annoying example that comes to mind is I know someone who won quite a bit by using free bonus money, only to have their winnings confiscated because their family member had also created an account unbeknownst to them. Even though the family member never registered for a bonus or made a single deposit, the casino still considered it to be multi-accounting, which was strictly forbidden, thus the bonus money was lost. The casino was gracious enough to let them withdrawal their initial deposit before closing their account.

In this situation, was a rule violated as defined by the casino? Absolutely. Was the person _actually_ multi-accounting in an attempt to cheat the casino? Absolutely not (or at least I believe their version of the events). In such an instance, to me, its still not worth giving the casino 2 sets of personally-identifiable information. Even if the casino is a straight-shooter, they still run the risk of mishandling the information, such as getting hacked, or it stolen by a vindictive employee, etc.

Long answer short: KYC-first probably isn't a beneficial policy.

[tyKiwanuka]

If you have 99 casinos all offering 100% sign up/first deposit bonuses, provided you send them copies of all your documents, and 1 offering no promotions and but with no KYC, then I'm picking the single no KYC one every time.

We would have to distinguish between casinos and bookmakers here, because casinos always win (longterm), but bookmakers might not. For casinos I agree with your statement, for bookmakers maybe not.

That one no-promotions, no-KYC bookmaker might be/stay a very small and not very liquid one. He will struggle with getting lots of customers, because it's really the promotions that get you the people that make you money - the recreational and addicted players. I would suspect that this one bookmaker will attract lots of sharks and thus a very unhealthy customer base. As a consequence of that, everyones money is at risk. And with a no KYC policy, these sharks will always come back. A KYC bookmaker can make your life hard way more easy; they can just filter out the, for them, unprofitable players by limiting or kicking them.

[Thekool1s]

First of all, thank you all for participating in this discussion. I have really enjoyed reading what you guys have shared so far. I pretty much agree with what @tyKiwanuka said so far, the only point I will contest tho is the following...

And when you are able to make lets say 1,000,- with one identity, then people are willing to provide you with their identity, if you offer them 100,- for it. They can feed their kids with that money and don't care about possible consequences then.

TBH this is kinda stretching it... Most online FIAT casino's don't accept clients from developing economies so even if you get their Identity for let's say 100 bucks or so, it will be useless as it won't help you in your verification process. I did some googling and found on average it will cost you around 50 bucks to get your hands on a fake Utility bill. Given if you aren't handy with something like adobe illustrator it will cost you more to create multiple identities. A fake passport can cost anywhere from $250-$500 at least this is what I found via google, I'm sure there are many blackhat forums where you might be able to get your hands on a bit less, I still put the figure around the $200 mark for a single fake identity along with a utility bill.

I kinda agree with what @o_e_l_e_o has said regarding dropping the promotions/Bonuses. We have to keep in mind Cryptocurrienies aren't FIAT. They can't be printed out of thin air like FIAT nor they can be borrowed from an entity by pressing a few buttons. Dropping promotions/Bonuses seems to be the real solution here. It respects the values driving the cryptocurrencies and basically takes the power away from the casinos to screw over their clients... I see no reason why would a casino require a KYC, if they had no promotions or Bonuses. The users also need to respect these values, you can't expect 100% deposit bonuses for the reasons I have stated above...

It should be either you give up your privacy for these 'fake' bonuses on the FIAT casinos which you will most likely end up losing anyway or have your privacy by not expecting some crazy bonuses or promotions and these crypto casinos should try to adhere to these values. They should either foot the bill by offering these bonuses and promotions or drop them all together... We as a community need to stand together, we need to frown upon these 'crypto' casinos/bookmakers which require users to perform a KYC. Having to go through a KYC verification defeats the very purpose of using Cryptocurrencies in the first place... I dunno why as a community we have kind of submitted ourself to these requirements when actually we don't even have to give out the smallest detail like which browser we are using let alone perform a full KYC.

Thoughts?

[o_e_l_e_o]

A fake passport can cost anywhere from $250-$500 at least this is what I found via google, I'm sure there are many blackhat forums where you might be able to get your hands on a bit less, I still put the figure around the $200 mark for a single fake identity along with a utility bill.

I'm not exactly up to date with the prices for fake documents, but I believe that is the price you would pay for a physical fake passport. Receiving a scanned .jpg or .pdf of somebody else's passport would be much cheaper, and would be more than enough to verify on the vast majority of online platforms.

I see no reason why would a casino require a KYC, if they had no promotions or Bonuses.

Well, until the government of whatever jurisdiction they are based in decides they want to start coming after their customers and forces them to enact KYC or close/move. As we've seen time and time again with exchanges, when such an event takes place, the exchange in question almost always sells out their customers and locks their accounts without warning pending mandatory KYC.

We as a community need to stand together, we need to frown upon these 'crypto' casinos/bookmakers which require users to perform a KYC. Having to go through a KYC verification defeats the very purpose of using Cryptocurrencies in the first place... I dunno why as a community we have kind of submitted ourself to these requirements when actually we don't even have to give out the smallest detail like which browser we are using let alone perform a full KYC.

I couldn't agree more. I have not, and will never, complete KYC at any crypto-related service. It is entirely possible to buy, sell, trade, withdraw, hold, gamble, mix, use, anything you want, without ever having to complete KYC, but too many users seem happy to trade their privacy and security for convenience.

[tyKiwanuka]

TBH this is kinda stretching it... Most online FIAT casino's don't accept clients from developing economies so even if you get their Identity for let's say 100 bucks or so, it will be useless as it won't help you in your verification process.

I can only talk about bookmakers here, since I never registered with a casino-only site and have no experience what is the standard there.

You are right, that some countries are excluded as I wrote yesterday, but from my experience it is more eastern european countries (Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic etc.). I have just gone through a few bookmakers and checked their T&C for first deposit bonuses and couldn't find poor-ish african/asian countries being excluded. It could still be the case though, since I only used german/english/nigerian IP to check.

The bookmakers are a bit ambivalent themselves with their promotions imo. On the one hand, they want to get as many (losing) customers as possible and otoh they don't want to get abused. And they steered a middle course for that. Apart from the exclusion of certain countries, Skrill/Neteller not qualifying, hard rollover requirements, they also introduced minimum odds to be played to fullfil the rollover requirements. Often times these minimum odds are 2.00+ nowadays (no multis allowed). What does that mean and where is the benefit ? That way they make sure, that even if there are abusers, they are likely to lose their deposit+bonus at their site (and win with the other site, that does not have these minimum odds requirement in place). So you attract "honest" recreational/addicted gamblers and those promotion-hunters mentioned in the example will lose their money with you.

We as a community need to stand together, we need to frown upon these 'crypto' casinos/bookmakers which require users to perform a KYC. Having to go through a KYC verification defeats the very purpose of using Cryptocurrencies in the first place... I dunno why as a community we have kind of submitted ourself to these requirements (...)

Problem is, there is no such thing like a gambling community - or lets say no community big and powerful enough to put some pressure on certain cryptobooks/-casinos. Most people are lonesome wolves when it comes to gambling. They might engage in betting forums or forums like this one, there are Facebook/Whatsapp groups and little private networks, but there is no labor union or things like that.
As mentioned earlier by o_e_l_e_o, there are really very few people, that care a lot about KYC. The majority just wants to gamble a bit and/or feed their addiction. If they have to do KYC for that, so be it. And have a look at Sportsbet, which imo is the frontrunner from the crypto-bookmakers. KYC is not mandatory there, but they might KYC you, if there is something suspicious. 99% will never have to do KYC there. If you are a longterm loser, you don't need to do KYC. You will only get KYC'ed, if you win (big) longterm or because of suspicious activities regarding multi-accounting with their promotions.

Most people are just "happy" with the way it is and/or don't bother.

I see no reason why would a casino require a KYC, if they had no promotions or Bonuses.

Well, until the government of whatever jurisdiction they are based in decides they want to start coming after their customers and forces them to enact KYC or close/move. (...)

Yes, correct. Most bookmakers/casinos are afraid of being bullied by governments; not only from their own jurisdiction. They either comply or put geo-restrictions for certain countries in place. But most of the time they comply, since with geo-restrictions, they lose their whole customers base of a certain country and by f.e. implementing KYC, they will only lose parts of them.

I wrote a bit about that here:

So the first thing that happened some years ago, was, that german customers weren't able to register with quite some bookies anymore. Existing german customers were kicked out, because the bookmaker didn't want to take any legal risks by letting german customers play at their sites.

[Thekool1s]

Yes, correct. Most bookmakers/casinos are afraid of being bullied by governments; not only from their own jurisdiction. They either comply or put geo-restrictions for certain countries in place. But most of the time they comply, since with geo-restrictions, they lose their whole customers base of a certain country and by f.e. implementing KYC, they will only lose parts of them.

If this is the case isn't there a gap in the market for 'decentralized' bookmakers and casinos to exploit? I mean if the only reason they have KYC requirements is due to 'regulation' pressure than going the decentralized route should be the way... I mean there are already a few dice websites I have seen working with Smart Contracts on ethereum, I'm sure something can be developed for the bookies and other games... Makes me wonder how many TOR based casinos are out there or if any... I might make a list of sorts if I find some later down the line...

Also about people not caring about their privacy, one of the major reasons is they aren't educated about it and let's be honest here it's not their fault. No one gets taught in the school about how you should protect your privacy on the internet. I always sympathize with these people. I believe people can change and 'adapt' if they become aware of what they are putting on the line. Although I agree with you that there isn't a "gambling community" which can pressure these casinos, I still believe Bitcointalk can play its part. IMO we have got a pretty strong community here, many of shady casinos were exposed and tagged in the past if we want to spread awareness about privacy then certain steps can be taken. E.G free advertisement on the banner ad for 3 months for the casinos which teach their customers about how to protect their privacy and stuff. I'm sure we as a community can come up with plenty of ideas which are executable in the real world. It's a win-win scenario...

People get to learn about what they put on the line when they perform a KYC verification and Casinos/Bookmakers get free promotion in the biggest crypto community. First Casino/Bookmaker to drop the KYC requirement gets a whole year of free promotion or maybe a pinned post in the Gambling board... There are so many ideas popping up in my head right now... It's about time people start caring about their privacy...

[Lakai01]

-snip-
I'm interested in hearing the opinion of you guys. Should these casinos adopt a KYC first policy, the industry-standard?
-snip-

First of all thank you very much for this very interesting discussion.

In my opinion the switch to KYC is mandatory if a casino wants to continue its business in the near future. Regulations are becoming tighter and tighter in the crypto space, for example take a look at the USDoJ statement regarding mixers (discussed here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5227233.msg53876905#msg53876905).
Under the mentioned cloak of "money laundering" online casinos are definitly the next target, simply because of the fact that there is an huge amount of money on the table.

[o_e_l_e_o]

If this is the case isn't there a gap in the market for 'decentralized' bookmakers and casinos to exploit?

Isn't this essentially what Augur is? I've never used it, so I may be way off base here, but I thought it was essentially a decentralized bookmaker which allows users to bet on any market they choose, provided there is another user willing to bet against them.

Also about people not caring about their privacy, one of the major reasons is they aren't educated about it and let's be honest here it's not their fault. No one gets taught in the school about how you should protect your privacy on the internet.

That's part of the problem, sure, but another part is that many have little desire to learn. Most of the people on this forum who blindly complete KYC with anyone who asks are here only to earn. They have no desire to contribute to the forum, they have no desire to learn about cryptocurrency, and they have no desire to learn about privacy. They only want to spam for some bounty campaign, and if sending their KYC documents to a stranger is needed to let them do that, then so be it.

People may not have been educated about protecting their privacy on the internet, but nobody would hand their passport to a random stranger on the street. KYC is no different.

[Darker45]

I have to say that the TOS of FJ is rather rigid at best or unfair at worst. [1] The case of using the IP address as the sole basis for determining whether a user is guilty of multi-accounting or not has already been thoroughly presented as unfair by the OP. And I fully agree. It cannot be made as the sole and ultimate arbiter to determine cases of multi-accounting. [2] The site's definition of multi-account is exaggerated or even tantamount to a ploy in case certain cases similar to what has been mentioned in the OP occur. It is a definition that would pave the way for them for a smooth exit from such potential cases. To potentially consider any account(s) made by family members, relatives, and friends as a user's another account(s) is simply too much. If a gambling site provides excellent services and experience, would you not recommend it to your gambler friend or relative or even family member? I think I would. In this case, not knowing that it could unfairly become a ground for me not receive my prize in the future.

I'm interested in hearing the opinion of you guys. Should these casinos adopt a KYC first policy, the industry-standard? If not then there is nothing stopping them to screw users over and vice versa. Without KYC both are parties are at risk of getting screwed over by each other. The users could find ways to create multiple accounts and casinos can bail themselves out by creating fake cases. So having a KYC first policy does seem to work.

I don't think the options are only limited to implementing a KYC or possibly getting screwed. In fact, even with a KYC, cheating users would still be able to create multiple accounts if they are really determined to. On the part of the site, they could still create a fake case despite the KYC.

Isn't there a regulating body that reviews and approves TOS of gambling sites before they are implemented?

[swogerino]

I think that multi accounting can’t be proved only with different IP addresses as a user can work in a big company which besides having their IGB interior gateway protocols is connected to multi homed environment with Bgp border gateway protocol to different Isp-s for example it may have three different Isps.Sorry for the tech terms but are needed to explain the concept.Where I work right now Internet is so cheap that I have 6 different Public Ips from six different providers and by using these Ips I own no one can accuse me of multi accounting.I think casinos should come up with stronger evidences.

[leea-1334]

Thank you everyone for the feedback it is always interesting for me to read.

My take on the industry standard is that, if it is not regulated properly, then there is no standard!

Most casinos, even crypto ones that request KYC are terrible at making sure they keep to their rules consistently. I think for me, I like casinos that only do KYC if needed,,, but on the other hand, a player does not like getting red flagged and suddenly being asked to KYC if it is a lot of money.

But if all wanted to do KYC, then we would all be going to fiat casinos right?

[tyKiwanuka]

If this is the case isn't there a gap in the market for 'decentralized' bookmakers and casinos to exploit?

There definitely is ! The problem is, you will struggle a lot to get customers (for now). There really isn't a lot of people world-wide that know of cryptocurrencies, let alone use them. They might have heard of "Bitcoin", but have no idea what this is all about.

Most people have their main bookie, where they play, where they are already KYCed and where they are happy. They are losing players and for them it doesn't really matter, where they lose their money. They like the design, are used to the navigation and just feel at home there. They don't even care about the (bad) odds. These people are extremely hard to drag away from "their" bookie and they represent like 80% maybe. There is no reason for them to look for other options.

What would very well work, but needs a lot of time and stamina to build up, is a decentralized betting exchange imo. On these exchanges, you have a lot of pro and ambitious bettors, who are more willing to go new paths. And most of them are already involved in crypto from my experience. There is a handful of companies, that got their feet wet and tried to build some competition to the worlds leading (centralized) betting exchange, but all failed. Betfair has a monopoly and they use their power to bully customers. Lots of users at Betfair are unhappy with their business practices, but they have no choice.

A decentralized betting exchange would attract lots of the people, but I think it's still too early, crypto needs more (mainstream) adoption first.

Isn't this essentially what Augur is? I've never used it, so I may be way off base here, but I thought it was essentially a decentralized bookmaker which allows users to bet on any market they choose, provided there is another user willing to bet against them.

Yes, Augur is doing this and Wagerr (not invested there, so no shilling) too. Wagerr does a pretty good job imo, the user experience is nice and they have super competitive odds, but they struggle to get customers/volume because of the above mentioned reason(s).

A recreational FIAT punter doesn't bother to download a wallet, sync it for hours, deal with private keys and all those other things, just to get good odds and not being KYCed. He will just keep on playing at his main bookie. More convenient.

[Haunebu]

Nope. Nope. Nope. KYC is definitely not the solution here both for the customers and casinos. I agree that it helps to a certain degree, but there is no difference between crypto and FIAT casinos if it is a necessity making crypto casinos less alluring.

As for the customers getting screwed for reasons like multi-accounting or what not, it is a necessary sacrifice. Nothing is perfect basically. Legit gamblers rarely get screwed over by these terms(When they play in legit sites).