iovation Report Finds Online Gambling Mobile Use and Fraud Increase in 2018

Findings part of iovation’s third annual Gambling Industry Report

iovation, a TransUnion company, today announced the availability of its 2019 Gambling Industry Report. This is the third annual Gambling Industry Report by iovation, providing a comprehensive analysis of the trends that drove online gambling in 2018 and insights into how to drive differentiation with players in 2019.

Key findings around online gambling in the report include:

• Mobile transactions skyrocket – Transactions processed via mobile devices grew at an average annual rate of 95 percent from only 6 percent in 2012 to 62 percent in 2017 to 70 percent of overall online transactions in 2018 (pg. 7).
• Game abuse and cheating increase but level out – The growth of game abuses and cheating like chip dumping and player collusion continued in 2018 but slowed from 55 percent growth in 2017 to an increase of 12 percent in 2018 (pg. 12).
• Credit card fraud continues steady climb – Over the past five years, credit card fraud increased by 155 percent with an average annual growth of 39 percent (pg. 13).

“Even in the evolving environment over iovation’s 15 years protecting more than four billion transactions and stopping more than 47 million fraudulent transactions, there are still some constants we can rely on,” said iovation EVP of Corporate Development and co-founder, Jon Karl. “While fraudsters may have adapted their tactics over the years, at the heart of every online fraud attempt — whether through the web, an application or via a mobile browser — is a customer device.”

In addition to the data findings, the report identifies and explores three key trends driving the iGaming market:

• Player experience as a market differentiator: Operators are facing a myriad of new challenges and an increasingly competitive market. The recent changes to gambling regulations globally including in the United States, Singaporeand India, presents an opportunity for market expansion, but also comes with competition from new operators. Attracting and retaining players with a superior experience has never been more important.
• Managing regulatory uncertainty: Operators are under increased regulatory scrutiny. For instance, fines against gambling operators in the United Kingdom rose from £1.6 million to £18 million from April 2017 to 2018 for money laundering violations and unfair practices. The U.K. Gambling Commission issued another round of fines totalling £14 million in November 2018, so this trend doesn’t look to be slowing.
• Convergence of fraud prevention and authentication: With the convergence of offline and online identities, it’s important to fight fraud and protect customers across the entire lifecycle without degrading the player experience. This can only be achieved by combining seamless customer authentication with next-generation fraud prevention, protecting against both existing and emerging threats.

The iovation 2019 Gambling Industry Report is based on detailed analysis of its more than 518 million transactions from more than 100 gambling operator and platform customers in 2018. The Gambling Industry Report is available for ICE London 2019 attendees at iovation booth number N9-500.To download the report go here.

About iovation
iovation, a TransUnion company, was founded with a simple guiding mission: to make the Internet a safer place for people to conduct business. Since 2004, the company has been delivering against that goal, helping brands protect and engage their customers, and keeping them secure in the complex digital world. Armed with the world’s largest and most precise database of reputation insights and cryptographically secure multi-factor authentication methods, iovation safeguards tens of millions of digital transactions each day.