Online gamblers in the US are using evasion techniques 119 percent more than those internationally, according to research released today by iovation – a provider of online fraud prevention solutions to eight of the top 10 gambling platform providers worldwide.

Research analyzing more than half a billion online transactions for iovation’s global gambling customers between March 2018 and March 2019 found that 4.13 per cent of online gambling transactions originating from the US – predominantly to European gambling operators – used techniques such as trying to hide their location.

This is 119 per cent higher than iovation’s finding that 1.89 per cent of online gambling transactions from outside the US used similar evasion techniques.

The associated press release from iovation said that some of the most glaring types of evasion techniques it had detected with online gambling transactions include:

  • The use of the Tor Browser: Tor is a privacy protocol that is intended to help people browse the Internet anonymously
  • Hiding behind a proxy: Accessing the Internet through a proxy, a service that masks users’ actual browser data, makes it more difficult to locate a user by means of an IP address
  • Geolocation mismatch: A person isn’t in the same time zone as their device displays

Jon Karl, Co-Founder and EVP of Corporate Development for iovation, said: “There is indeed a pent-up demand in the U.S., where gamblers will go to rather extreme measures to try to get around restrictions to become a customer of a foreign gambling site.”

He added: “Device intelligence has proven effective at detecting customers trying to play on gambling sites from which they are restricted. This will be essential for gambling operators launching in the U.S. that will need to comply with interstate regulations and limit play by geographic boundaries.”

The importance of device intelligence for self-exclusion was highlighted by Angie White – the firm’s Product Marketing Manager – as part of an interview with SBC News earlier this year, which focused on the key findings from its ‘2019 Gambling Industry Report’.

“We had 223,000 self-exclusion reports placed by operators in 2018, linked to 795,000 devices which means you have each of those reports were linked with three to four devices,” said White. “And those were associated with 965,000 accounts, so you can see that you have players across multiple sites, using multiple devices associated with a self exclusion report.

“We’re able to show those linkages so that you can more effectively shut down players to protect your business and the player.”