The BitchMeister Blog

Some great info Max...thanks for the post, and the work involved in putting it all together.

As a player, the organized fraud team info is disturbing to hear since sometimes 'regular' players get caught in the nets. We've seen that happen at least once over the last year or two (was it Rushmore?) and it takes awhile to clear it up. I'm sure it makes it more difficult to find who are the innocent parties in cases like that too, since the innocents AND the fraudsters are both loudly protesting.

But they must be able to get away with it sometimes, otherwise there would be a downward trend. It's like the Nigerian spam stuff - you wonder "who falls for this stuff?" but obviously people still do or they wouldn't bother any more.

Actually I think the organized fraudsters have been quite successful, at least judging from how the casino groups are responding to this threat. They're pretty much pulling out the stops AFAICT, devoting HUGE amounts of time, effort and $$$ to the cause.

On the surface this might all sound like good and proper business practice but in fact I find it more than a little troubling. The actual steps that some casino groups are taking, at least the steps that are made visible to outsiders like me, are not at all comforting. For example things like "spirit of the bonus" clauses and "off the page" evidence that is being accepted as proof of fraudster activity are seriously muddying the waters as to who is legit and who isn't. In other words, more dolphins in the net. And given the tough times, etc the casinos are in pretty foul moods when it comes to openly discussing this stuff and possibly re-evaluating previous decisions. Overall the climate is pretty chilly when it comes to the whole fraudster thing.

One of the reasons I stick with the casinos I've been playing at for a long time. Having to deal with ID and everything on a new casino is just too much of a hassle lately.

Interesting conclusions, Max - it sounds as if casino managements desperate to protect their businesses are running the risk of over-reacting and chasing players away through an unwillingness to cooperate when the wiser course would be engaging with known mediators like yourself.

Perhaps the technologies for detecting fraudsters are also improving, making the crooks more vulnerable - it's a thought as part of the wider picture.

I guess that as the industry continues to mature there is a deepening pool (experience wise) of security guys involved who have the sort of specific knowledge of online gambling fraud tactics to become more effective.

The danger is that in the rush to combat fraud, companies may over-react and throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Regarding jurisdictions, I don't see any improvement in Malta's LGA, which appears to remain uninterested in player issues, and ponderous and operator or self-interest oriented when it does show signs of life. Licensing makes a lot of money for this island government, which is probably why they show more enthusiasm for recruiting new licensees than policing their existing operators and assisting players with problems.

IMO Alderney has done a great deal of damage to its reputation this year in their handling of the Full Tilt debacle.

It's going to be interesting to see how offshore companies licensed in these jurisdictions react when the UK government brings in their "secondary licensing" requirement for companies wishing to access the British market, and indeed how the "old school" jurisdictions like Gib, Malta, IoM, Antigua etc fare as the European national regulatory trend continues to develop....especially if the EC manages to persuade everyone to harmonise their regulations.

Thanks Jetset, great addition(s) to the topic.

Quite agree regarding Malta and Alderney. For whatever reason this seems to have been a pretty lousy year in terms of the European-facing licensing jurisdictions.

And very much agree that the up-tick in fraud busts may well be due to an increase in the sophistication of the detection methodologies. I have no doubt that the fraud-detection people are playing an entirely different game than they were three or four years ago. In fact I'd say that both the detection people and the perps have pretty much "gone pro" in the past one or two years.

What worries me, as you rightly mentioned, is that the percentage of dolphins are getting chopped up right along with the main catch purely because of the eagerness of the fraud-detection people's efforts is on the rise too. Inevitable I suppose but one would hope the operators would be sensitive to this probability and tweak their processes accordingly. Frankly I'm not sure that's happening nearly as much as it should. In fact some of what I'm seeing pass for "fraud detection" these days is pretty damn suspect stuff in itself, borders on the "overactive imagination" category sometimes. Sad but true.