Recently, the market-leading Know Your Customer (KYC) player onboarding specialist 1account has issued a report claiming that an improved registration process for online casinos could be actually beneficial.
As revealed by the CEO of 1account, Ben Keirle, a better registration process for online gambling operators could attract more customers and help the sector boost its revenues by more than £1 billion.
The company took a close look at more than 4,500 lines of Know Your Customer data provided by players who were seeking to register a new online account with one of five licensed gambling operators in the UK. Each of the companies already had a KYC provider in place, none of them being 1account.
The data used for the review was generated by UK gamblers providing their name, postcode, address, and date of birth in the period from February to June 2022.
According to the study carried out by 1account, each gambling business was trying to meet the basic onboarding requirements in order to allow a player to open an online betting account and become eligible to place their first bet. This can be done by customers validating on no less than one of the following data sources – first name, last name, date of birth, postcode, and address. As a second data source players could use either their first/last name, postcode and address or their first/last name and date of birth.
LCCP and AML Guidelines Require Operators to Register Customers with Reliable Data Only
The aforementioned check is more commonly known as a “2+2” check and is used by operators in the UK to make sure they comply with the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) and anti-money laundering (AML) guidelines issued by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). In order to do so, gambling companies use eKYC-based checks where the data filled in by potential customers is checked on reliable data sources in real time.
In case the “2+2” check is successfully met, the online gambling platform can choose to allow the player to register their account. In some cases, the anti-money laundering guidance of the UK gambling regulatory body requires operators to conduct extended due diligence checks on players at times they reach certain levels of spending.
In case the operator is unable to match the player attribute data on reliable data sources, it could implement alternative validation methods, such as players manually sending their ID or proof of address documents, or methods of submitting the necessary documents electronically.
The registration process is being continuously innovated by gambling companies as part of their efforts to perform better and guarantee qualitative customer protection.
More Than 40 Million Applications Filed in Year Ending in March 2021, 1account Report Says
According to the study held by 1account, almost 33 million new players have been successfully registered in the UK gambling industry in the year ending in March 2021. Apart from them, however, there was also a significant number of players who applied for establishing an account with a certain online gambling provider but were turned down.
Industry provided some averages that state that they successfully opened 33 million new player accounts as a result of more than 40 million applications. However, to understand the overall value of players who were not given the chance to register with online gambling operators researchers had to take into consideration the marketing department, on one hand, and the Know Your Customer and compliance department, on the other hand.
As mentioned above, the checks associated with the KYC procedures block a significant number of people from becoming customers of UK online gambling operators. The report issued by 1account states that on average, four in 10 people who start the registration process were unable to complete it.
Gambling operators saw an increase between 8% and 12% in player applications when running the adjusted data through the 1account system. This basically means that if not for the KYC requirements and the rest of the legislative requirements, at least 3 million more players would have been onboarded than the operators actually did. This results in losses of more than £1 billion for the UK gambling sector, 1account has claimed.
- Author
Daniel Williams
