Why bonus abuse is iGaming’s costliest fraud problem

Promotional campaigns are supposed to pull in genuine players and speed up growth. In iGaming, though, welcome offers, free spins, cashback and referral rewards have also become a direct line item in fraud losses, with multi-accounting sitting at the center of the mess.

1. According to Identomat, the most common pattern is multi-accounting: one player, a fraud ring or an organised betting syndicate opens multiple accounts to claim the same promotion again and again. The mechanics vary, but the goal is the same — make one person look like many.
2. The toolkit is fairly predictable: fabricated details, stolen identities, borrowed documents, synthetic profiles and mule accounts. For operators, that does not just mean compliance noise. Duplicate accounts drain promotional budgets, distort acquisition metrics, trigger manual reviews and hide genuine high-value customers in the process.
3. The pressure spikes during high-volume windows. Major sporting tournaments, seasonal casino campaigns and new-market launches all bring registration surges, and fraudsters tend to move when fraud teams are already stretched thin.
4. Traditional controls still matter — email verification, phone checks, IP monitoring, device intelligence and payment analysis — but they do not answer the core question: is this a unique, legitimate individual? Emails can be created in seconds, phone numbers rented, IPs masked and devices rotated. Even document checks only prove that an ID looks valid; they do not prove the person holding it is the rightful owner.
5. Biometric player verification changes the unit of measurement from the account to the person. A typical flow combines ID verification, liveness detection, face match against the document portrait, duplicate account screening and risk-based decisioning. The economics shift with it: a bonus hunter can rotate devices and emails, but cannot easily become a different live person.

The urgency is not theoretical. Liminal’s 2025 KYC research found that 79% of surveyed organisations felt unprepared to deal with synthetic identities, while 87% felt unequipped to handle deepfakes. For sportsbook KYC teams, the pressure is especially sharp around major events, when registration spikes and aggressive promotions make abuse easier to hide in plain sight.

For operators and PSPs serving high-risk verticals, the practical takeaway is straightforward: if bonus abuse is the problem, account-level checks are only half a defense. Identity verification, liveness, face match, age verification, AML monitoring and configurable onboarding workflows are what let teams spot duplicates, add step-up checks before bonus claims or withdrawals, and keep legitimate users moving.