Your Input Please Can UKGC licensed casinos require photo IDs?

[vinylweatherman]

You are right that can not be nice for players in that situation without good contacts like you had. At least you did have a way out (going through the hassle of getting a new counterpart licence) but it would have been frustrating.

An equally frustrating situation, which I think is probably quite common, should be touched on in this thread as well in my opinion. That is the one of "proof of address" documents.

These are regularly requested at the same time as the proof of ID and a frequent rule is that they must be actual physical documents, an electronic document will not suffice. The problem is for the last decade society has been moving strongly towards paperless statements/billing for stuff that is accepted. Bank statements, electricity bills and the like. I would also like to see electronic verification for this side of things to be more common, and the acceptance of online documents for KYC purposes. It must be an extreme hassle for players who cannot get hold of a proof of address that is acceptable to release the big win as everything they receive is paperless.

Apart from the physical document aspect, which is irrelevant anyway as many electronic bills can be downloaded as a PDF of the EXACT physical document they would post out for "paper billing", and this is so that you can print your own paper bill if you want one for your records. Indeed, some companies even steer you towards printing your own paper bill from the PDF rather than opting for postal statements. It's easy then to print off your paper bill from the PDF, and then treat that as a paper bill to scan, photo, including all 4 corners showing and using the page showing name and address. It's impossible for casinos to tell the difference because they only have a scan or a photo of a printed bill on standard A4 paper, the SAME paper that is used for postal bills. The only way they can tell the difference is if you tell them beforehand, or it's a document that goes beyond a standard utility bill, and is printed on bespoke paper, perhaps with a watermark, that should show up even in a scan or photo.

The other problem is even worse, casinos assume that the player is "head of household" and has the bills in their name. This assumption is only going to be correct in single person households like mine, but it's more normal for people to live in family groups, and ANY adult could be the player, and quite legally, but they may not be the one who pays the bills. With utility bills, it's left to the adults in a household to decide for themselves who pays, the utility company just needs one name on the account to bill for what is supplied, they don't care who else lives there and is also using the gas, electric, water, etc. So long as they are getting paid.

Many potential players would face having to alter their household setup, even to the extent of contriving a structure just to suit the casinos. Surely the LAST thing casinos want is for regular players having to resort to some of the tricks often employed by "advantage players" simply so that they can set up their household such that each adult would have what they need, and in their name, should they be pulled up for a documented KYC as opposed to the electronic system. I say this because in doing the research, such players will inevitably find temptation, and the knowledge that they can go much further than simply ensure that each of them has a bill in their name and a photo document. They will also see articles, blogs, and general bragging about how some players can make "easy money" by taking full advantage of how the industry works in terms of marketing, loyalty, +EV "loss leader" offers to attract new players (and how to avoid the pitfalls that lead to not getting paid). This is nothing to do with fraud, it's purely "advantage play", no different to the craze for "extreme couponing" that seems to be spreading as people brag about such feats as doing a major grocery shop with a huge wad of coupons and a pocket full of loose change to pay a few quid left over once all the coupon discounts have been taken off.

 

[CasinoCruiseRep]

Hi Everyone,

Currently we are a partner company of EM and therefore are restricted by their guidelines.
This means that in order to verify an account we only accept a government issued form of ID such as a driving license or passport.

In the future there is scope to change this to have electronic verification tools in place.
If a player has his basic identity verified, we could accept identification such as a birth certificate.
Please note that in these cases if the name of a player changes or for other security reasons, we would require evidence of the name change or identity: e.g. a marriage certificate or other documents.

Kind Regards,
Casino Cruise

 

[vinylweatherman]

Hi Everyone,

Currently we are a partner company of EM and therefore are restricted by their guidelines.
This means that in order to verify an account we only accept a government issued form of ID such as a driving license or passport.

In the future there is scope to change this to have electronic verification tools in place.
If a player has his basic identity verified, we could accept identification such as a birth certificate.
Please note that in these cases if the name of a player changes or for other security reasons, we would require evidence of the name change or identity: e.g. a marriage certificate or other documents.

Kind Regards,
Casino Cruise

The guidelines of a private company are not above the law. Consumer rights cannot be restricted by company policy, it's been tried, and companies have regretted it after having been slapped with fines or taken to court. In fact, a consumer can't even sign away their legal rights even if they wanted to in order to get a contract with a company. This too has been tried, and has also failed in court as the offending terms have just been struck out by the judge as being in violation of the law.

Casinos offering service to UK players should have had everything in place in time.

Driving licence is not actually a "government issued ID" in any case, many companies misunderstand the nature of the document, and what it is for. Funnily enough, it's more akin to a certificate for completing a course of education and passing the exam at the end. It's just that in this case it's a driving course, and the exam at the end is the driving test. The purpose behind the photo card licence was to combat test fraud, where experienced drivers would be paid to take the test on behalf of the student to ensure they got a pass whether or not they were fit to be on the road. This is served by having the test centre reception compare the student about to sit the test with the photo on the licence. It confirms whether or not the person taking the test is the same person against who's record a pass will be noted with DVLA. What it doesn't check is the student's ID in the broader sense.

As a stunt, a TV documentary demonstrated how lax the procedures are by successfully applying for a provisional licence for our then home secretary. DVLA duly sent back the provisional in his name, even though the application had not come from him, and was from an address used by the TV production company. This was a failure at the most basic level. Pretty much everyone knew who David Blunkett was at the time, a very senior minister, always in the news, and not only that, he was BLIND! - yet the DVLA approved the application. This is an issue for the ordinary citizen because it shows how easy ID fraud can be when someone has just enough of your details to trick DVLA into issuing a driving licence in someone else's name. The culture of accepting the driving licence as the UK's "national identity card" as a short cut for the inability to handle how the process of ID verification works in the UK is what then does the damage.

It's possible that casinos may have players using such a trick with driving licences on their books, and it has worked as the system puts the player in charge of sourcing and sending off all the documentation that the casino uses in it's verification process. True ID cards would be more robust, and proper checking would take place before one was issued. one of the reasons the UK government scrapped the idea was the expense of doing all these checks for EVERY citizen, not just those who volunteered for the document, as is the case with passports. As with passports, the checking for ID cards would have involved a personal interview with the applicant as well as all the data checks.

Even passports could become a problem as an ID checker for casinos due to the move towards biometric data being embedded into a chip on the document, rather than being printed on a page. This isn't going to help when all the casino gets is a scan or photo of the relevant document page, but no access to the data on the chip.

The UK government does not support the use of these documents as proof of ID other than in the context of driving test centres and border crossings. This means that changes will not be held off simply because it prevents a scanned copy of the document being as useful for remote ID checking. Instead, the electronic methods are supported, and are being made better and more inclusive. However, one change made recently that was supposed to make the system work even better has somewhat backfired. The change to individual electoral registration as opposed to household based registration has seen a significant number of voters fall off the register, so for these people, the electronic systems have been "broken", but they probably don't realise because they have always had their registration taken care of by the "head of household", and haven't had to worry about it before. Students studying at university away from home seem to have suffered the biggest impact from the change as the behind the scenes bulk registration at hall of residence level has ended.

 

[beverly1]

hi

well i provided council tax bill departement work pension letter phone bill bank statements medicall card etc etc and when i applied for driving licence got letter today saying as my birth certificate has a differant name i would need to change my name by dee poll so its not that easy as i am finding out..or they will give my licence in the name on my birth certificate and that wouldnt be much good for id at a casino..but the fact i will stand by all the paper id i provided in my eyes was way enough to verify i was me but hell no.regards beverly

 

[DANB9191]

Photo ID

I find it really funny how they only ask for it upon a withdrawal. It seems to be you when you're making as many deposits as you can before getting that win !? I get it all the time !! I have a passport but it's out of date and I'm not going to order another one until I actually go on holiday.

I've always seen it as an easy way for casinos not to pay out !! And that's just one of the ways

Just stick to the casinos that don't ask or have already accepted other documents that you have and are no older than 3 months (Birth certificate, bank statements, card scans, government letters and bills) I find that all of these documents together is a good, solid combination of your identification !! I mean, who else is going to have all of them documents other than you ?! Especially the bills, bank statements and government letters that only get sent to your address.

It's just another thing that's sucking the "FUN" out of online gambling

 

[lena1967]

Do most UKGC casino accept Citizen card?

Here's a question that has come to mind concerning KYC docs and UKGC licensed casinos. For some odd reason (perhaps the fear of an Orwellian world), the UK doesn't require its citizens to have a photo ID. Unless you are driving on the wrong side of the road, or coming to Tenerife to get pissed and trash the beaches - you don't need one.

But all of the UKGC licensed casinos require folks to properly ID themselves, and this is traditionally done by providing picture IDs. Now, we have had a number of complaints in the past, and one ongoing one right now where a player is being requested to produce a picture ID. I have gone through a number of UK facing casinos' terms and conditions, and some state that they would ask for a photo ID, or they would have a third party get involved as in the case of Betspin:

So my question is, how are UK players dealing with this? Do you know that you may be asked for a photo ID? If you don't have one, how do you deal with these rules? Further, should the casinos make it more apparent in-your-face that you may need to provide a copy of a passport or driver's license?

Are UK facing casinos willing to make this requirement more conspicuous or pronounced? Or are they actually using third parties to figure out who people are? VWM will love this thread.

Good Luck all

 

[lena1967]

Do most UKGC casinos accept Citizen card?

Here's a question that has come to mind concerning KYC docs and UKGC licensed casinos. For some odd reason (perhaps the fear of an Orwellian world), the UK doesn't require its citizens to have a photo ID. Unless you are driving on the wrong side of the road, or coming to Tenerife to get pissed and trash the beaches - you don't need one.

But all of the UKGC licensed casinos require folks to properly ID themselves, and this is traditionally done by providing picture IDs. Now, we have had a number of complaints in the past, and one ongoing one right now where a player is being requested to produce a picture ID. I have gone through a number of UK facing casinos' terms and conditions, and some state that they would ask for a photo ID, or they would have a third party get involved as in the case of Betspin:

So my question is, how are UK players dealing with this? Do you know that you may be asked for a photo ID? If you don't have one, how do you deal with these rules? Further, should the casinos make it more apparent in-your-face that you may need to provide a copy of a passport or driver's license?

Are UK facing casinos willing to make this requirement more conspicuous or pronounced? Or are they actually using third parties to figure out who people are? VWM will love this thread.

And which ones ,been told has to be government issued but UK dont issue I.D cards? So Citizen card is it valid for I.D? Has pass logo expiry date D.O.B

 

[vinylweatherman]

And which ones ,been told has to be government issued but UK dont issue I.D cards? So Citizen card is it valid for I.D? Has pass logo expiry date D.O.B

It should be, because this is the scheme the government set up. The UK government decided effectively to privatise the issuing of point of sale ID cards, mainly for proof of age, and have authorised certain providers to issue these and use the official PASS scheme holographic stamp. ONLY citizen cards with this PASS mark are considered secure enough to be accepted as proof of age. The photo is there so that the person presenting the card can be checked against the photo to make sure it's their card.

Unfortunately, so many casinos fail to grasp how things work in the UK, and believe we have formal ID cards "like every other country", and that any UK player that tells them otherwise is probably trying to wriggle out of KYC rather than telling the truth. Things should be better with UK licenced casinos, and UK players will probably find this is less of a problem than it used to be.

If in doubt, get verified before depositing. If casinos are waiting on a deposit they often verify faster and are a little more flexible.

 

[colinsunderland]

It should be, because this is the scheme the government set up. The UK government decided effectively to privatise the issuing of point of sale ID cards, mainly for proof of age, and have authorised certain providers to issue these and use the official PASS scheme holographic stamp. ONLY citizen cards with this PASS mark are considered secure enough to be accepted as proof of age. The photo is there so that the person presenting the card can be checked against the photo to make sure it's their card.

Unfortunately, so many casinos fail to grasp how things work in the UK, and believe we have formal ID cards "like every other country", and that any UK player that tells them otherwise is probably trying to wriggle out of KYC rather than telling the truth. Things should be better with UK licenced casinos, and UK players will probably find this is less of a problem than it used to be.

If in doubt, get verified before depositing. If casinos are waiting on a deposit they often verify faster and are a little more flexible.

See, this to me is what i have a problem with. Most casino's don't ask for any KYC even if you do 100 deposits, but as soon as you want money from them, you have to provide it. That is my main problem, as its ok saying 'get verified before deposit' but I would bet 90% of first time users or people who use places like Coral, Skybet etc have no idea you have to send ID off, as they all verify electronically, so why would they think anywhere else would be different?

The UKGC should make UK facing casino's have something, in bold, on the sign up page saying before you can withdraw you MUST supply ID, and if the casino only accepts photo ID, have that specified on the same page, or if not, a 'click here to see whats accepted' link.

I know LOADS of people who don't drive and don't have a passport, especially older people, and younger ones, probably not as much as a problem for people in say mid 20's upwards, but my mother didn't have any photo ID, my 21 year old daughter doesn't have any either. They both managed to have a mortgage, credit cards and the like. If they can get a £100,000 loan to buy a house without photo ID there is absolutely no reason at all why a casino should refuse to pay out because they don't have any, especially when they might have deposited 20 times before asking to withdraw!

 

[vinylweatherman]

See, this to me is what i have a problem with. Most casino's don't ask for any KYC even if you do 100 deposits, but as soon as you want money from them, you have to provide it. That is my main problem, as its ok saying 'get verified before deposit' but I would bet 90% of first time users or people who use places like Coral, Skybet etc have no idea you have to send ID off, as they all verify electronically, so why would they think anywhere else would be different?

The UKGC should make UK facing casino's have something, in bold, on the sign up page saying before you can withdraw you MUST supply ID, and if the casino only accepts photo ID, have that specified on the same page, or if not, a 'click here to see whats accepted' link.

I know LOADS of people who don't drive and don't have a passport, especially older people, and younger ones, probably not as much as a problem for people in say mid 20's upwards, but my mother didn't have any photo ID, my 21 year old daughter doesn't have any either. They both managed to have a mortgage, credit cards and the like. If they can get a £100,000 loan to buy a house without photo ID there is absolutely no reason at all why a casino should refuse to pay out because they don't have any, especially when they might have deposited 20 times before asking to withdraw!

This is because the bank would have used the system we have here in the UK, electronic verification via one of the credit reference agencies as well as cross checking against other data sources. The most important thing for this to work is to be registered on the electoral roll at your current address, as this is compulsory. It also helps a great deal to have had credit in the past so that a credit history has been built up.

Citizen card, and other photo documents, are used at shops when buying alcohol and tobacco, and are used because the seller can see the buyer in person and compare them to the photo. Much quicker than the shop running an electronic ID check every time someone buys a packet of fags.

Casinos CANNOT compare the photo on a document to the person who emailed it in, so they don't really need a photo on the documentation, it being formal government issued should be enough. They may argue that without a photo they can't tell that the person sending the documentation hasn't stolen it, but they can't tell this even WITH a photo because they are looking at an email, not the player's face, as they hand it over.

 

[goatwack]

Most casinos give me a pass on the photo ID

 

[colinsunderland]

This is because the bank would have used the system we have here in the UK, electronic verification via one of the credit reference agencies as well as cross checking against other data sources. The most important thing for this to work is to be registered on the electoral roll at your current address, as this is compulsory. It also helps a great deal to have had credit in the past so that a credit history has been built up.

Citizen card, and other photo documents, are used at shops when buying alcohol and tobacco, and are used because the seller can see the buyer in person and compare them to the photo. Much quicker than the shop running an electronic ID check every time someone buys a packet of fags.

Casinos CANNOT compare the photo on a document to the person who emailed it in, so they don't really need a photo on the documentation, it being formal government issued should be enough. They may argue that without a photo they can't tell that the person sending the documentation hasn't stolen it, but they can't tell this even WITH a photo because they are looking at an email, not the player's face, as they hand it over.

I know and I think we are saying the same thing, however the banks still require ID along with electronic verification, and they can accept non photo ID if someone doesn't have it. My point being if a bank can for a loan of 100k then a casino certainly can for a withdrawal of £50. Any who refuse are just being awkward and should be removed from any accredited list as there is no reason. Photo ID means nothing really, if someone is in the business of laundering money then I'm sure they can get a fake driving licence, and, as you say, what does the photo prove?

 

[vinylweatherman]

I know and I think we are saying the same thing, however the banks still require ID along with electronic verification, and they can accept non photo ID if someone doesn't have it. My point being if a bank can for a loan of 100k then a casino certainly can for a withdrawal of £50. Any who refuse are just being awkward and should be removed from any accredited list as there is no reason. Photo ID means nothing really, if someone is in the business of laundering money then I'm sure they can get a fake driving licence, and, as you say, what does the photo prove?

There is a list of acceptable forms of ID set out by the government, and this list caters for the fact that we don't have a universal photo ID system. There is a list A for people with photo ID, and a list B for those without. List B has a couple more documents than A due to the lack of a photo document. What they are looking for is enough documentation from independent sources to be pretty sure there is no fraud. This can be done without a photo ID, as after all, the process of getting a photo ID begins with a set of non-photo paper documents. It also helps to already have an account with the bank you are asking to lend you £100K, because they would then have their own dataset on you, and they would have to have verified you in the past in order to give you the account.

I have several bank accounts and cards, and I have yet to be asked to scan and email my driving license or passport. One step they DO take that casinos don't is that an online application is followed by them sending out the agreement by post to the address I gave them, and only when I have signed it and sent it back am I considered "verified" and the account or card opened. This is one way casinos could verify an address, and it would give them more control than relying on an energy supplier's bill that could be faked. The casino would just need to have a unique code in the letter that can only be discovered by receiving it in the post, and only when the player gave this code to the casino would they have the address verified. A fraudster could fake one of these letters, but it wouldn't have the correct code, so would fail. A couple of casinos in the past actually used such a method. I had this at Intercasino (and other Cryptologic sites) and the Lasseters/Ausvegas brands.