Hi pinkfloyd,
I am going to reply with a quote that I read from Nifty29 in another thread. Cant really say it better.
"The casinos COULD easily do this, but they either ALL have to do it or NONE of them.
Why?
If you signed up at a casino, registered your account, and then it said "your account will not be playable until 3 forms of ID are sent and verified by our security team", what would YOU do? I'll tell you what most players would do, and that's uninstall and go to another place that doesn't have these measures in place.
Also, consider the case of a new casino opening. How long do you think it would take to go through carefully the ID documents of ,000s of players (most of who are impatient and will email every 13 minutes to ask if their docs are verified which will triple the time taken anyway).
The reason casinos DON"T verify BEFORE play is because it is unworkable, NOT because they want to take your winnings at the other end. A legit casino will always find a way to verify your identity IF you are an honest player. A rogue casino will find a way to rip you off regardless of ID.
I wasn't being mean in saying that you shouldn't play if you don't have sufficient ID - I was just trying to perhaps save a new member from a nasty situation."
Wayne
The problem from many complaints posted here is that casinos will often NOT "work with" the player to come up with an alternative means of identification.
A player may tell the casino that they don't have a government issued document with their photo on it, and the casino will claim the player just didn't want to cooperate and "refused to send in the documents". You cannot make a choice to refuse to supply what you don't have, you are merely stating a fact.
Many other documents have been suggested, and indeed these form part of what the government says can be accepted by financial institutions to identify their customers for the purpose of preventing money laundering, the SAME rules that casinos say necessitate them making sure of their players' ID.
Whilst it is a burden to verify ID on registration, this is NO excuse for holding back on this once it is clear that you have a loyal customer who is making further deposits. If done at this stage, the verification procedure need not hold up anything. Waiting until the first withdrawal causes a delay in that payment, not helped by the fact that it often takes 2-3 days before the casino even bothers to ASK for the documentation. I say this from experience, and can confirm that there is always such a delay, and it always slows down the usual speed of getting paid. In most cases, I receive the document request AFTER I would normally have been paid, and seen the money in my Neteller account. It gives the impression that such cases are deliberately "sat on" for a couple of days before documents are requested.
Then we have the endless problems of "didn't receive them" and "too dark", "too light", "unclear", etc. A load of vague BS that doesn't help the player figure out WHY their documents are "too dark", etc - so repeated attempts to send them are ALSO rejected.
This is even WORSE when it comes to UK players who don't drive, or are old enough to only have been issued the paper license.
The casinos justify the current system as being necessary because players are "impatient". Odd therefore that they do NOT seem so concerned about their LOYAL players when they manage to make their first withdrawal, and seem determined to try their patience in a way that would NEVER be considered for a NEW player.
This is a business disease, LOYAL customers are treated as "second class", and NEW customers are treated like royalty. Unfortunately, the speed with which customers are now prepared to "take their custom elsewhere" has RESULTED from decades of loyalty being a sign of stupidity, along with the internet and printed media pointing out just how BAD a deal you get by staying loyal to one provider for a long time, and showing such customers how NEW customers are paying MUCH less than they are for the SAME services from the SAME provider, and how simply by switching every year or two, they can ALWAYS get treated like a prince.
Business is now in a hell of it's own making, as the high rate of "churn" causes them to have to spend more on "set up" for customers that they may only keep for the minimum term.
The real answer to the issue of ID is for the industry as a whole to get together and set up an independent organisation that players can go to and get verified ONCE to cover them at ALL casinos who are a member of the scheme. This could first be done through eCogra, or by an ID verification organisation vetted by eCogra as being good enough to ensure that casinos can rely on it.
This organisation would issue players with a set of STANDARD ID verification documents that they will send to member casinos. One would be a photo bearing "players card" that will bear name, address, confirmation that player is over 18, and a unique serial number that casinos can use to access the player's records from the ID verification organisation. The card will be posted to the player at his confirmed address, and additionally, there will be a regular letter sent out to players bearing a different serial code that will change every time, and only be valid for, say, 3-4 months.
When a casino wants to ID a player, the player will send in a copy of the player card and the latest regular letter. The casino will check these to ensure that the two serial codes match the records held by the ID verification organisation.
The service could even be expanded to cover the verification of deposit methods.
The cost of setting this up and running it will be covered by a reduction of in-house duplication of the same functions. For players it will offer an assurance that they are either "good to go" or not, and they will not have to worry about some casinos rejecting documents that others have accepted without fuss. Casinos can then advertise this as a "selling point" for their product, and as giving players a better service than casinos outside the scheme. This would lead to players preferring to play at casinos who are a member of this scheme, and a long term drift away from casinos not participating. This will then lead to MORE casinos wanting to join the scheme.
Currently, we have different operators doing their own thing, and as well as making things harder for genuine players, it makes fraud EASIER because what might get spotted by one operator can be slipped past another because they have not yet been targetted. This means that fraudsters currently hop from one operator to another, whereas if they get caught by ONE participant in such a scheme as outlined above, they will find they can no longer target ANY operator in the scheme.
