Report: Online gambling industry plagued by increased fraud threats

The online gambling industry was one of the top three targeted industries by fraudsters, according to the latest data.

Research from TransUnion showed the attempted fraud rate against the gambling industry soared 36.2% year-on-year from Q2 2020 to Q2 2021.

The top type of fraud deployed to target the gambling industry was policy and licence agreement violations, according to TransUnion.

The other two industries that experienced an increase in fraud attempts were gaming, which rocketed 393%, and the travel and leisure industry, which leapt 155.9%.

TransUnion based the study on billions of transactions across more than 40,000 websites and apps across the world.

Overall, digital fraud attempts increased 16.5% globally between Q2 2020 and Q2 2021.

The report found fraudsters has shifted focus from traditional industries such as banking and insurance as they look to target new victims.

Shai Cohen, TransUnion SVP global fraud solutions, said fraudsters highlighted the gambling industry as one of high growth and, therefore, sought-after prey.

He said: “It is quite common for fraudsters to shift their focus every few months from one industry to another.

“Fraudsters tend to seek out industries that may be seeing an immense growth in transactions. The immense growth in gaming fraud also can be attributed to the shifts in focus of fraudsters as this growing market becomes a larger target.”