iGaming Fraud Volumes Rise 4.5x as AI-Powered Verification Attacks Accelerate

Sumsub says suspicious transaction volumes in iGaming increased 4.5 times from early 2025 to early 2026, while the average value of flagged transactions climbed from just under $4,000 to around $6,500. For PSPs, acquirers, and operators, the point is simple: fraud is no longer just higher in volume, it is getting more expensive per hit.

1. By the first quarter of 2026, the overall rate of fraudulent verification attempts had reached 1.53%, up 18% from the previous year and sharply higher over two years. On paper that looks small; in practice, Sumsub says it translates into millions of attempts across platforms worldwide.
2. The mechanics have also changed. Fraudulent users now take more than four times longer than legitimate players to complete verification processes, which suggests a more deliberate approach: repeated attempts, more careful manipulation of identity checks, and less reliance on quick automated bursts.
3. AI is the main enabler in this shift. Fraud networks are using AI tools to build synthetic identities, alter documents, and generate realistic-looking faces, which lets them produce large volumes of fake applications quickly and cheaply. The result is straightforward: even when individual submissions look weak, the aggregate load can overwhelm verification systems.
4. Compliance teams are absorbing the pressure. Sumsub’s findings point to mass production of low-quality submissions that can strain both automated defenses and manual review queues, which is exactly the kind of workload problem high-risk operators know too well: a flood of borderline cases is often enough to slow onboarding and raise operating costs.
5. Regionally, Africa has the highest prevalence of fraud among the four regions in the report, while North America has the lowest. Europe has been fairly stable, though attacks are becoming more technologically advanced, and Latin America has seen fraud rise in recent years, with fake proof of address documents becoming a common tactic.

The practical takeaway for high-risk payment teams is that single-layer checks are no longer doing the job. The report points toward multi-layered controls that monitor user behavior across the full customer journey, rather than treating verification as a one-time gate.