SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
As the UK heads towards its showpiece event of the horse racing calendar, Riten Gohil, Digital ID, Fraud & AML Orchestration Expert at Signicat, writes for SBC News to explain why ensuring speed, resilience and accuracy will lead to ultimate success at the 2025 UK Grand National.
Fascinating insights from Last year’s Grand National demonstrated the power of RiskFlow Orchestration solution in supporting gaming operators during the extreme peaks for player verification, all within the space of a few hours.
Signicat’s RiskFlow Orchestration is a RegTech platform that automates KYC, KYB, AML and fraud prevention by integrating over 240 data services. It streamlines onboarding, enhances compliance, and reduces fraud and bonus abuse, helping businesses manage risk efficiently while improving customer experience.
Signicat has worked with a number of the UK’s leading gaming operators for a number of years, and each year Grand National preparedness is a key area of focus in our planning with the operators, which has become intuitive in recent years.
Held annually at Aintree Racecourse, ‘The National’ is one of the most significant events in the UK’s sporting calendar. Known for its high stakes and widespread popularity, it attracts a surge in gaming amongst traditional and occasional punters, whereby most gaming operators experience a substantial influx of new customer accounts being opened in the hours leading up to the race.
This year, Signicat anticipates facilitating the verification of hundreds of thousands of new customers, marking a significant increase year-on-year.
Meeting high stakes with robust solutions
The Grand National draws numerous individuals who typically do not engage in gaming activities throughout the year. For operators, maintaining robust compliance processes while managing customer experiences during these peak hours is crucial.
Signicat’s platform offers enhanced resilience, enabling high-frequency requests over sustained periods, and utilises AI-driven performance routines to ensure real-time verification without compromising customer satisfaction.
During the event, the focus on managing bonus abuse and identifying multiple accounts is paramount. Signicat’s ability to swiftly detect fraudsters and approve genuine customers in real time becomes critically important during such high-traffic periods.
For example, last year’s primary challenge was a huge influx of brand-new customers opening online gaming accounts in the five to six hour window leading up to the start of the Grand National.
Achieving impressive auto-approval rates
A standout metric last year was the 90% auto-approval rate achieved during peak times. This rate reflects the efficiency with which Signicat’s platform can onboard customers within existing fraud and compliance policies. Despite the surge in verification requests, Signicat maintained 100% availability during the critical pre-race period.
Handling approximately 11 transactions per second during peak periods, with an average response time of 2 seconds, these results underscore the performance and scalability of our platform.
Operators conducted comprehensive fraud and compliance checks, including anti-fraud and bonus abuse detection, address validation, electronic KYC, as well as age identity verification, affordability and AML checks.
I am immensely proud of our collaboration with the Grand National, which has given outstanding results. Our RiskFlow Orchestration solution has proven to be one of the leading platforms for fraud detection and identity verification in the industry.
We successfully supported an enormous flow of requests during the busiest racing day of the year, demonstrating the resilience, reliability, and scalability of our technology. This achievement highlights our commitment to ensuring a safe and responsible gaming environment for all players.
Signicat’s AI-powered routing maximises transaction success by compensating for any provider performance degradation, ensuring smooth customer onboarding experiences. This innovation significantly contributes to customer retention and lifetime value.
Future potential and broader applications
The value derived from the Signicat RiskFlow platform extends beyond the Grand National. Similar activities are anticipated during this summer’s FIFA World Club Championships and high-profile events that will take place throughout the year.
As we maintain our ventures into the US gaming market, we also aim to deliver similar levels of performance and resilience during major events like the Superbowl, NBA playoffs and Finals, as well as the huge numbers that are derived from the Indian Premier League.
Moreover, the platform’s capabilities apply to high-demand event ticketing, where robust fraud and risk checks are essential. Signicat’s RiskFlow orchestration platform is poised to meet these high-volume challenges anytime, anywhere.
