Bonus Abuse: Who is to Blame?

[Fortify]

So I was reading this article where a recent study showed that 71% of online gambling merchants have reported an increase in promotion abuse over the past year.

After surveying 1,700 fraud and payment professionals based at online gambling platforms, the study found that 62% of all types of online merchants had suffered an increase in fraud over the past 12 months. These operators detailed significant impacts on revenue as a result of online fraud.
Promotional offers are a common tactic employed by online gambling platforms to attract customers; such offers include loyalty rewards, sign-up bonuses and free bets.
Savvy players make use of multiple accounts and different IP addresses to exploit these promotions, finding loopholes that result in heavy financial losses for the companies targeted.
Another form of fraud that has seen an increase is online payment fraud, with 67% of merchants reporting a rise in payment details being taken from customer accounts. The high traffic of the websites involved can make it difficult for companies to clamp down on fraudulent activity.

I was sitting and wondering, there will always be bad actors in online gambling but who is to blame, the customers/fraudsters or the gambling merchants? Are the customers/fraudsters getting tech-savvy or are the gambling merchants getting complacent in checking and testing their website for loopholes? Don't these online gambling operators anticipate these frauds while building their websites? Why don't they invest in a robust fraud detection system before the fraud happens and not after?
I ask again who is to blame for the increase in bonus abuse, the customers/fraudsters or the online gambling operators?

In reality gambling companies don't get any benefit from people abusing the system and in fact pay large amounts for teams that seek to stamp it out. The sort of people who go to great lengths to take advantage and abuse the system of bonuses tend to stray into many grey areas, which then lead further on to pure criminal activity. These sort of cheaters will often go to extreme lengths if they perceive the ability to squeeze free money out of a company and we must remember that a single dollar has a very different value in different countries. If somebody is able to make say $300 dollars by jumping through numerous, but repeatable, hoops.. then they could potentially live an above average life in somewhere like Venezuela.

[Cookdata]

every promotion carried out by gambling sites has a large enough abuse loophole and it's not just 1 or 2 gambling sites that have experienced this. it's difficult for gambling sites to prevent this, especially those that don't require KYC, the gap for abuse is getting bigger, the problem is that gambling sites that require KYC will be deserted because people prefer non-KYC. the conclusion is that no one is to blame!!

Not that I endorse KYC implementation on any platform, however, only a casino that wants its gambling ground to be overrun with bots would offer large promotions on a non-KYC casino, most of the time, they only offer free spins in those kinds of casinos, which they know they can control, rather than a welcome bonus, which will be heavily abused.
Implementing KYC may limit the usage of bots, but it may also be misused since KYC can be manipulated. We have people who buy other people's information to pass KYC, and they may even pay others to conduct KYC for them if they don't want any company invading their privacy.

[KennyR]

every promotion carried out by gambling sites has a large enough abuse loophole and it's not just 1 or 2 gambling sites that have experienced this. it's difficult for gambling sites to prevent this, especially those that don't require KYC, the gap for abuse is getting bigger, the problem is that gambling sites that require KYC will be deserted because people prefer non-KYC. the conclusion is that no one is to blame!!

Not that I endorse KYC implementation on any platform, however, only a casino that wants its gambling ground to be overrun with bots would offer large promotions on a non-KYC casino, most of the time, they only offer free spins in those kinds of casinos, which they know they can control, rather than a welcome bonus, which will be heavily abused.
Implementing KYC may limit the usage of bots, but it may also be misused since KYC can be manipulated. We have people who buy other people's information to pass KYC, and they may even pay others to conduct KYC for them if they don't want any company invading their privacy.

Users have got multiple ways for KYC and all other needs. Just think of a below 18 person into gambling. Does he fulfills KYC, no he enters just by accepting he/she is above 18+ and if requested for KYC they night move to another casino or find a solution with someone else details. This happens and Casinos doesn't want their users to move away from them, because the industry is competent and more are on the queue to serve.

[serjent05]

For me since it is a gambling I don't have to blame anybody because everybody is aware that gambling make up of different things both higher risk and the lower risk, because who ever that is going for gambling knows that it deals with lost and profit even though someone defraud you it's as same thing as gambling, so nobody should be blame

Gambling is different from cheating, scamming, exploiting, and fraud.  Obviously, the ones at fault here are those cheaters and exploiters.  Casino or gambling operators often give bonuses to attract players, since the gambling industry is a business, they tend to compete with other gambling operators thus they are giving away promotions and bonuses with certain requirements.  It is the fault of the cheaters and exploiters to cheat the casino operator so being neutral when we really know who the cheater and exploiter are the same as allowing them to just do whatever bad intention they have on any gambling platform.

In reality gambling companies don't get any benefit from people abusing the system and in fact pay large amounts for teams that seek to stamp it out. The sort of people who go to great lengths to take advantage and abuse the system of bonuses tend to stray into many grey areas, which then lead further on to pure criminal activity. These sort of cheaters will often go to extreme lengths if they perceive the ability to squeeze free money out of a company and we must remember that a single dollar has a very different value in different countries. If somebody is able to make say $300 dollars by jumping through numerous, but repeatable, hoops.. then they could potentially live an above average life in somewhere like Venezuela.

Indeed, gambling platforms being exploited by cheaters often lose a huge amount of money.  Since these cheaters and exploiters' main goal is to make their pocket fat at the cost of the gambling operators.

[livingfree]

Fraudsters have always been up to date with the tech and that's why they test out everything they know to exploit a system like the ones in the casino if they've seen a bug.

All casinos can't totally look after their customers at all times unless they've got that system that detects unusual activities. Although there really are those casinos that can detect those but it's not that majority of them has that type of system.

[Biscutard]

every promotion carried out by gambling sites has a large enough abuse loophole and it's not just 1 or 2 gambling sites that have experienced this. it's difficult for gambling sites to prevent this, especially those that don't require KYC, the gap for abuse is getting bigger, the problem is that gambling sites that require KYC will be deserted because people prefer non-KYC. the conclusion is that no one is to blame!!

So that is the reason why gambling as a whole bears a lot of risk. Not only for the gamblers but also for the one implementing the gambling activities. They will do anything to their power to get more users on their website. Bonuses and other stuff like that are always subject for abuse. Because people always finds a way how to get everything for free while monetising at the same time.

[Slow death]

So I was reading this article where a recent study showed that 71% of online gambling merchants have reported an increase in promotion abuse over the past year.

After surveying 1,700 fraud and payment professionals based at online gambling platforms, the study found that 62% of all types of online merchants had suffered an increase in fraud over the past 12 months. These operators detailed significant impacts on revenue as a result of online fraud.
Promotional offers are a common tactic employed by online gambling platforms to attract customers; such offers include loyalty rewards, sign-up bonuses and free bets.
Savvy players make use of multiple accounts and different IP addresses to exploit these promotions, finding loopholes that result in heavy financial losses for the companies targeted.
Another form of fraud that has seen an increase is online payment fraud, with 67% of merchants reporting a rise in payment details being taken from customer accounts. The high traffic of the websites involved can make it difficult for companies to clamp down on fraudulent activity.

I was sitting and wondering, there will always be bad actors in online gambling but who is to blame, the customers/fraudsters or the gambling merchants? Are the customers/fraudsters getting tech-savvy or are the gambling merchants getting complacent in checking and testing their website for loopholes? Don't these online gambling operators anticipate these frauds while building their websites? Why don't they invest in a robust fraud detection system before the fraud happens and not after?
I ask again who is to blame for the increase in bonus abuse, the customers/fraudsters or the online gambling operators?

In reality gambling companies don't get any benefit from people abusing the system and in fact pay large amounts for teams that seek to stamp it out. The sort of people who go to great lengths to take advantage and abuse the system of bonuses tend to stray into many grey areas, which then lead further on to pure criminal activity. These sort of cheaters will often go to extreme lengths if they perceive the ability to squeeze free money out of a company and we must remember that a single dollar has a very different value in different countries. If somebody is able to make say $300 dollars by jumping through numerous, but repeatable, hoops.. then they could potentially live an above average life in somewhere like Venezuela.

in my opinion these abusers are most of them people addicted to gambling, they gamble a lot and lose everything they have, then when they have no way to get more money to continue playing they will create several accounts to have more bonuses and continue to play, and of course they lose everything again, we can even think: "the abusers are making a lot of money and the casinos are getting poor thanks to the abusers" but in my opinion that would not be true, the reality is that these abusers at the end of the day lose everything they managed to gain thanks to abusing the system, this is because the purpose of people who abuse the system is to have more money to continue playing, they are not abusing the system because they want to have a lot of money and stop playing play to do things in the real world, that's not what abusers want... abusers want more money to keep playing

[carlfebz2]

every promotion carried out by gambling sites has a large enough abuse loophole and it's not just 1 or 2 gambling sites that have experienced this. it's difficult for gambling sites to prevent this, especially those that don't require KYC, the gap for abuse is getting bigger, the problem is that gambling sites that require KYC will be deserted because people prefer non-KYC. the conclusion is that no one is to blame!!

So that is the reason why gambling as a whole bears a lot of risk. Not only for the gamblers but also for the one implementing the gambling activities. They will do anything to their power to get more users on their website. Bonuses and other stuff like that are always subject for abuse. Because people always finds a way how to get everything for free while monetising at the same time.

There would be no abuse if the casino/platform does really set out those security measures and those terms and conditions on the right manner because if people do find out some exploits or probabilities then it would be

normal that they would really be abusing it as much as it could or still possible on doing so thats why as a platform who do launched out these bonuses then it would be normal that you should really be checking out
first on everything.
Bonuses and perks are standard and a very common ways on hooking up people on playing on the site but it do always falls down into someones preference.

[AicecreaME]

every promotion carried out by gambling sites has a large enough abuse loophole and it's not just 1 or 2 gambling sites that have experienced this. it's difficult for gambling sites to prevent this, especially those that don't require KYC, the gap for abuse is getting bigger, the problem is that gambling sites that require KYC will be deserted because people prefer non-KYC. the conclusion is that no one is to blame!!

So that is the reason why gambling as a whole bears a lot of risk. Not only for the gamblers but also for the one implementing the gambling activities. They will do anything to their power to get more users on their website. Bonuses and other stuff like that are always subject for abuse. Because people always finds a way how to get everything for free while monetising at the same time.

There would be no abuse if the casino/platform does really set out those security measures and those terms and conditions on the right manner because if people do find out some exploits or probabilities then it would be

normal that they would really be abusing it as much as it could or still possible on doing so thats why as a platform who do launched out these bonuses then it would be normal that you should really be checking out
first on everything.
Bonuses and perks are standard and a very common ways on hooking up people on playing on the site but it do always falls down into someones preference.

I have the same sentiments with you. There would be no bonus abuse if and only if the casino is conducting a maintenance, daily checking, or update on their security measures and servers. If the casino's security is strong enough, no one will be able to bypass and exploit the system. But if the security is weak and they are only conducting checking complacently, then certainly there would be bugs and glitches that would occur.

And as we know, the moment people know that there is a vulnerability in the system, they will utilize and take advantage of it for their own benefit. There are only a very few who will be honest and kind-hearted to report the glitch in which they can profit from. While both may be at fault because taking advantage of something that is just an error is bad, the casino is in greater responsibility of bonus abuse.

[wxa7115]

I have the same sentiments with you. There would be no bonus abuse if and only if the casino is conducting a maintenance, daily checking, or update on their security measures and servers. If the casino's security is strong enough, no one will be able to bypass and exploit the system. But if the security is weak and they are only conducting checking complacently, then certainly there would be bugs and glitches that would occur.

And as we know, the moment people know that there is a vulnerability in the system, they will utilize and take advantage of it for their own benefit. There are only a very few who will be honest and kind-hearted to report the glitch in which they can profit from. While both may be at fault because taking advantage of something that is just an error is bad, the casino is in greater responsibility of bonus abuse.

I cannot agree with this, anyone that knows anything about computers knows that it is almost impossible to create a system that is bug free, so even casinos that are doing their best are going to present an error or two once in a while.

Also most casinos on their terms of service directly state that if there is an instance in which a bug is found by their clients they have to report it and to not abuse it, so by playing at that casino you have made the compromise of not abusing any vulnerability, so in that case it is my opinion the player is completely to blame if they do something like that.

[nullama]

If there's anything to be obtained, there will be people trying to obtain it.

You might want to think that's immoral, wrong, whatever, but it will continue to happen as long as there are people on Earth.

The only thing left to do is to deal with it somehow. So the answer is basically the companies need to have a better system to deal with this, because nothing will stop people trying to get more and more of those bonuses.

[Zlantann]

If there's anything to be obtained, there will be people trying to obtain it.

You might want to think that's immoral, wrong, whatever, but it will continue to happen as long as there are people on Earth.

People would always abuse opportunities offered by these gambling companies. They would always devise different means to cheat the system and get illegal or fraudulent gains. In my location, the most common way of frauding these gambling companies is through the opening of multiple accounts.

The only thing left to do is to deal with it somehow. So the answer is basically the companies need to have a better system to deal with this, because nothing will stop people trying to get more and more of those bonuses.

These gambling companies need to engage the services of cyber security experts and other gambling experts. These professionals would help them formulate good terms and conditions for their bonuses. And cyber security experts would help install and consistently upgrade the security systems of these gambling companies. 

[inthelongrun]

Of course, it is the abusers that are to be mainly blamed. But casinos being abused are also part of the blame even if they are innocent because they are supposed to make it clear that promotions are should be free from possible abuses. Fraudsters are everywhere and they will take advantage of every possible way they can.

This is also the reason why many casinos wanted to implement KYC. But another option is to let non-KYC clients gamble but exempted from some promotions that are difficult to track.

[traderethereum]

If there's anything to be obtained, there will be people trying to obtain it.

You might want to think that's immoral, wrong, whatever, but it will continue to happen as long as there are people on Earth.

The only thing left to do is to deal with it somehow. So the answer is basically the companies need to have a better system to deal with this, because nothing will stop people trying to get more and more of those bonuses.

It must be because seeing other people's success will make them interested in trying it.
Thus, if they don't manage to get one, they will continue to look elsewhere.
Maybe it has to do with morals because it means they are cheating against the casino, especially themselves.
Maybe they are to blame but it also depends on the people because not everyone will act like that and not abuse the opportunity.

[Saint-loup]

Of course, it is the abusers that are to be mainly blamed. But casinos being abused are also part of the blame even if they are innocent because they are supposed to make it clear that promotions are should be free from possible abuses. Fraudsters are everywhere and they will take advantage of every possible way they can.

This is also the reason why many casinos wanted to implement KYC. But another option is to let non-KYC clients gamble but exempted from some promotions that are difficult to track.

Don't be naive casinos are not poor innocent victims, and most of their promotions can't be abused by multi-accounts. If you offer 10% bonus on a game, there is absolutely no advantage in having several accounts. Wagering 5 mBTC on one account and wagering 5 mBTC on another one won't give you anything more than wagering 10 mBTC on one single account. Moreover many casinos are offering ranking bonuses, then cheaters are missing those bonuses by playing on several accounts.
In addition, making profits at a casino is very rare, even with promotions and cheaters can lose their funds if the casino spots them.
So I don't believe them when they claim to be abused like that. In most cases, it's a free excuse to ban or to restrict accounts of winning players.

[samcrypto]

If there's anything to be obtained, there will be people trying to obtain it.

You might want to think that's immoral, wrong, whatever, but it will continue to happen as long as there are people on Earth.

The only thing left to do is to deal with it somehow. So the answer is basically the companies need to have a better system to deal with this, because nothing will stop people trying to get more and more of those bonuses.

It must be because seeing other people's success will make them interested in trying it.
Thus, if they don't manage to get one, they will continue to look elsewhere.
Maybe it has to do with morals because it means they are cheating against the casino, especially themselves.
Maybe they are to blame but it also depends on the people because not everyone will act like that and not abuse the opportunity.

This has beed discussed many times and Whatever the reason is they should not abuse the system even if they see an opportunity to do so. Most of the site are very strict, if you don’t want to face any problem with your account, avoid doing such bad activities remember that someone is watching and your karma will hit you. If the site is not that secured especially on those bonuses better to tell it to the site so you can also help them grow, bonuses are very attractive on some site and maybe that is why many are becoming more greedy.

[TopTort777]

Call it what ever you want, but I find bonus abusers similar to bug bounty hunters. They only get 100% rewarded with money, but not with "thank you, here are 5 free spins for you". Call them security testers. They are the one who punish lazy security admins and greedy casino owners, that rather pay a freelancer 1k for casino engine, then hire development staff. However, such bug hunter must not be a newbie also, because he will be identified quick. Only few deserve to go free with abuse As this is their reward for knowledge and experience.

[Pierre 2]

Some people will remember this. Epic Games once gave Grand Theft Auto 5 as a gift to everyone. And I remember many people exploited it, created new accounts and sold those gta5 copies to people who are unaware its already free. So I mean when you give people opportunity they will definitely exploit. Its not something about gambling or gambler nature or mentality. Websites should close possible loopholes. They are to blame.

[Betwrong]

~
I ask again who is to blame for the increase in bonus abuse, the customers/fraudsters or the online gambling operators?

When someone left the door to his house open, and the house was robbed, we don't blame the guy that left the door open, right? Of course it's fraudsters and offenders to blame.

If you travel to different countries, you can easily spot the difference between more cultured peoples and less cultured ones. In prosperous countries, where people are more educated and thus more cultured, you can see goods and food items for sell left on the street without anyone watching over them. ...

My point is, bonus abusing is a disgusting thing to do, but people from countries where thieves can be heroes ... they simply have no clue.

[TopTort777]

Some people will remember this. Epic Games once gave Grand Theft Auto 5 as a gift to everyone. And I remember many people exploited it, created new accounts and sold those gta5 copies to people who are unaware its already free. So I mean when you give people opportunity they will definitely exploit. Its not something about gambling or gambler nature or mentality. Websites should close possible loopholes. They are to blame.

But do you think that is bad what happened? In general people sold information they obtained (about free GTA5) to those who did not know it. Buyers could have googled that before buying. I mean teachers get paid for their work, but student can get same knowledge from books. Whose who have sold those accounts are enterprising people, that's all. Should epic games be blamed for that? I think no, epic games worked fine - they had gifts, they gave gifts.