Organisations including E-gaming and online casinos are required to regularly report on the winnings of their customers – for increasingly small amounts – and consequently, will benefit from the establishment of a “Single Customer View” of their data.
With as many as two million UK adults at risk of gambling addiction, there are considerations specific to this industry, some regulatory and others situational.
Self-exclusion has long been the elephant in the room for gambling as there is a process in place to manage self-exclusions but currently it consists of a table created by the Gambling Operators being cross-referenced manually against their existing databases (with not enough regularity, granularity or clarity). Experian can offer a ready-made solution to this issue as it already has relationship tables and an integrated data matching technology for further autonomy.
A list of names of those who have been blacklisted for fraud/ cheating or expulsion and exclusion for other reasons exists and poses a similar challenge for the gaming industry as self-exclusion.
The rise of online gambling companies has resulting not only in an increase in gaming, but also in crime. These organisations are not only regulated heavily by the Gambling Commission they also have to be AML compliant as there have been a number of well documented issues with money laundering via gambling. The fourth incarnation of this legislation came into force on the 26th of June 2017 and strengthens previous rules and regulations in all EU states.
Much like the AML regulations, Gaming & Gambling companies are obliged to know exactly who is putting money in and where it comes from. Robust data profiling offered by data management technologies such as Experian Aperture Data Studio can help with this.
The gambling commissions remote technical standards (RTS) are rapidly evolving towards increased rigour in regards to the quality of data held on gamblers.
These include technical and security requirements and by the first of April 2018 will have been updated to include a requirement to display all transactions, account history, net deposits and financial limits.
The establishment of a single customer view is key to complying with these requirements and smart data management can help with that.
Many gambling companies have issues with pre-registered gamblers signing up again due to forgotten passwords or forgotten credentials in general, lots of these companies set mobile phone resets as their defaults but are not capturing mobile/email addresses correctly at the front end. This can also be exploited by individuals wishing to receive multiple “free bet” type offers. Matching and validation capabilities can combat this fraudulent activity.
The gambling industry is regularly conducting merger and acquisition activity, resulting in shunted data, Migration challenges and difficulties with permissioning.
Automated marketing activities such as email promotion results can be significantly improved when email addresses have been verified as up to date, syntactically correct and deliverable, proving a clear return on investment into data quality.
Users of gaming industry products often have two personas – two sets of data – for in-store and online use.
This can present significant issues where incorrect data might be in one source but not the other, for instance, if entered by hand and not validated in a shop rather than on a website.
It can also present problems when someone has self-excluded online, but decides to visit the high street.