Rebekah Jackson, GBG: Make sure your processes are a happy path

“There are a lot of things nowadays that you can look to to pick up fraud,” GBG’s Director of Gaming, Rebekah Jackson, emphasised to SBC as she sat down to discuss the threat of fraud to the industry.

In an interview with SBC Media at the SBC Summit Barcelona, Jackson provided an overview of the fraud risks facing the betting industry, and what operators can do and are doing to counter these threats.

The manner of fraud and creation of false identities has changed rapidly with the onset of new technologies and payment methods, Jackson observed. Notably, chargebacks are of course an ever-present problem.

Chargebacks are not all though. GBG’s Gaming Director also noted that ‘people are getting better at creating false identities’, and AI has accelerated the use of ‘deep fakes’. However, she also observed that operators have made progress in improving their defences.

“What we’re seeing is more and more adoption of different technology, different data,” she said. “So when we think of things such as email intelligence, mobile, intelligent spotting, before sorting players for the door, I think that the operators are starting to catch them out earlier on and try to protect these measures.”

In Jackson’s view, operators can strengthen their defence against fraudulent activity further ‘layering in more tools to protect the business’. For example, looking at the history of a email address or phone number to see if it has been connected to fraudulent activity in the past.

However, betting is of course a customer focused business and so Jackson also commented on the importance of the experience and journey, namely how operators need to ensure that their processes have a ‘good path’, as lacking this can damage a firm’s reputation.

“We’ve been seeing challenges from regulators and legal challenges where people haven’t got this right,” she continued. “ I just think that ensuring that process is a happy path is just so important in this day and age. Not getting it right can really damage a business.”