Arbusers

A new report from Sumsub, a global provider of identity verification and compliance solutions, claims to shed light on the growing scale of fraud in the online gambling industry. But while the data is for sure attention-grabbing, it’s worth questioning whether the full picture is really being shown.
Before diving into the numbers, let’s consider who’s presenting them. Sumsub is a company specializing in KYC (Know Your Customer), KYB (Know Your Business), AML (Anti-Money Laundering) screening, transaction monitoring, and fraud prevention. In short, they profit by helping companies fight fraud—so naturally, it's in their interest to emphasise just how big the problem is. They might be biased.
That doesn’t make their findings invalid of course, but it does mean we should view the data critically, not blindly.


Key Findings from the Report

1. By geography, Bangladesh leads the global fraud rankings with 8.5% of all applicants flagged as fraudulent. Other high-risk countries include Indonesia (8%), South Korea (6.6%), Pakistan (6.1%), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (6%).


2. Between 2022 and 2024, fraud in the online gaming sector rose by an average of 64% year-over-year.


3. The most common fraud method was selfie mismatch, accounting for 73% of all fraud attempts in Q1 2024.


4. AI-generated deep-fake scams are increasing rapidly, up 10x between 2022 and 2023.


5. Money muling remains the most widespread form of gambling-related fraud.


Fraud Isn’t Always Where It Appears

As I highlighted in our forum before, some countries are riskier than others. But the origin of the fraud isn’t always where the data suggests. For example, an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh may hand over his identity documents, voluntarily or not, to Turkish human smugglers in exchange for passage to Europe. Upon arrival, he might resell his profile again and again to European-based crime syndicates. The fraud still appears to come from Bangladesh, but in reality, it's orchestrated and monetised elsewhere. I could go on and on with similar examples, but this is not the objective of this post.


What Counts as Fraud? It Depends Who You Ask

Another grey area worth addressing: bonus abuse. Many compliance companies, including Sumsub, treat this as a type of fraud. But in the real world, what’s labeled as "abuse" by a sportsbook might simply be ''best practises'' by a smart bettor. Using promotions, matched betting, and structured play isn’t inherently unethical, but when aggregated in reports, these behaviours may be presented as identity theft or money laundering.
This blurs the line between player behavior and criminal intent—and inflates the perception of fraud in public-facing statistics.


Lies, damned lies, and statistics

As the saying goes: “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” And in industries like gambling, where data is raw power, context is everything.
The Sumsub report presents important insights, but it's also marketing. The line between risk analysis and product promotion is thin, and we should all be aware of that.
Numbers don’t lie but they rarely tell the whole story. That’s where forums like this matter. Let’s keep questioning, digging, and calling out the masks behind the masks.