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AI can easily summon images of sci-fi films and books, but today artificial intelligence is being increasingly used in a wide variety of fields. Fighting crime, including fraud, money laundering and other transgressions in casinos, is no exception.
Chip Dumping and Money Laundering
Everybody likes winning big at poker or blackjack, but sometimes wins are too good to be true, and AI can be used to monitor when this happens and act accordingly. Casinos are there for entertainment, but criminals wishing to shift funds online surreptitiously may seek to do so via the abuse of a seemingly innocent transaction. By deliberately losing at poker to a specific player (when the recipient is the only other person still with an active hand), large sums can be transferred. In addition to detecting this, AI can also be used to initially impose limitations on transfer sums, and relax these once it seems a player is genuine.
At the withdrawal end, limitations on cashing out often exist naturally, but these can become more restrictive should players exhibit suspicious behavior (to prevent someone who has had a sudden rush of good luck withdrawing everything immediately).
Fraud and Theft
Many notable events where people succeeded in their theft attempts often ended up blowing the cash (or card details) on crazy activities such as major booze benders or lucrative betting sprees. This is why popular online casinos nowadays have KYC (Know Your Customer) protocols in place to help confirm personal details such as addresses and identity. But combating fraud also now requires the use of AI. And fighting it is important because, from a business perspective, a reputational hit in a very competitive casino industry can be very serious. Fear of losing important personal details can easily drive away online casino players who have no shortage of alternative sites at which to play.
The fight against money laundering and fraud is why a standard entry in the terms and conditions of online casinos is to have just one account per household. Players logging in from a variety of locations can have their IPs tracked, which helps prevent people being together in the real world and acting co-operatively (to the unfair disadvantage of other players) in games like poker or blackjack online.
Account Protection
In addition to preventing ne’er-do-wells from committing acts of a nefarious nature, AI also has a role to play in safeguarding genuine players from harm. Keeping passwords safe is the most straightforward requirement, and authenticating identity through 2FA to avoid account access should a password be compromised (which can happen either online or in the real world) is a good backup step most casinos now support.
Algorithms are not perfect, but they are very useful for web security. If you have a Frenchman playing who one day logs in from Kazakhstan it doesn’t take a genius to realize this may be a case of data theft, especially if their first action is to try and withdraw as much as possible. That particular example would stand out a mile to anyone, but what AI can do that humans cannot, is continually monitor data without falling asleep and, more importantly, without the casino needing to employ an unfeasibly costly workforce.
The above is also an extreme example of an unusual type of behavior, but more subtle variations (such as the poker collusion example mentioned earlier) can also be identified due to AI having a solid understanding of typical human actions. This can be used to create predictive models and restrict account features or even ban players if contrary actions happen (such as folding in poker when a player has a very good hand). The capacity for constant monitoring enabled by AI is its greatest single strength, although the right to appeal for players is important as sometimes entirely innocent acts can appear dubious (we’ve all had fat finger syndrome lead to clicking the wrong button at one time or another).
The Sports Side
These days, AI is used to fight crime in multiple fields, from human trafficking to aging and reconstructing faces to help identify both victims and perpetrators of crime. Casinos are no exception to this expansion in the crime-fighting capabilities of artificial intelligence.
It’s not unusual for online casinos to also have a sports betting wing. But here too AI can prove invaluable in spotting distinct and strange betting patterns that can serve to identify criminality. The perfect example of this is the love of cricket many sports fans have, coupled with a fondness for betting. Cricket is an ideal sport for fixing bets by paying off players because it’s intensely complicated which means there are lots of minor markets. Giving away a wicket can stand out as much as a gifted goal in soccer, but a no-ball or a specific number of no-balls being bowled is much less obvious. However, by taking advantage of the computational power that AI makes possible, dubious (as opposed to fortuitous) betting behavior can be readily identified and steps taken to investigate the matter. Whether you like to make money with your mobile or prefer a desktop, casino AI is a good thing for security.
AI has been a step-change in defending individuals’ safety online, and in combating those seeking to use businesses, such as online casinos, in criminal ways. However, it’s still important for players to be security conscious, and to not use the same passwords at multiple sites (otherwise one breach can cause a major problem at multiple sites).