eGaming Review December 2013 | Page 11

HITTING THE STRIP UK operator William Hill releases a new TV advertising campaign, backed by heavy investment, to coincide with the launch of its £1m Vegas giveaway promotion FRAUD PREVENTION THE NEW NORM FOR THE GAMING INDUSTRY DAVID EXCELL, CO-FOUNDER AND CTO OF FEATURESPACE, ARGUES THERE’S NO SUBSTITUTE FOR STRONG DATA ANALYTICS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST FRAUD The online gaming space can be hard to police. Unlike a physical casino, customers can’t be observed in the flesh. Add to that the number of transactions taking place at any one time, and you have a breeding ground for fraudsters who thrive in the apparent anonymity of big data. As such the online gaming industry almost comes to expect a certain amount of fraud to occur. But this shouldn’t have to be the case. Currently many online gaming companies employ batch processed, rulebased fraud alerts which run at regular intervals. However, with fraudsters altering their trends and patterns to prevent detection, it becomes difficult to effectively pinpoint fraudulent activity. This has created a culture of cautiousness with organisations potentially turning away good customers simply because they can’t distinguish between what actions may or may not be fraudulent. Not only can this create a negative perception of the brand among consumers MONIKA FIALA GREG LOUCAIDES SEAN KEOGH CFO and interim CEO Fiala will become interim chief executive of mybet when current CEO and co-founder Mathias Dahms stands down by the end of 2013 after 15 years at the company. Only a week prior to the announcement of Dahms departure, Fiala was also hired as chief financial officer to replace retiree Stefan Hänel. Poker manager Joining the Malta-licensed operator in March 2012, Loucaides was poker retention manager at Stoke-based bet365 for over two years and also held a number of roles at Action Poker Network. In his current position Loucaides is responsible for driving mybet. com’s online poker and casino strategy. www.egrmagazine.com Platform director Keogh originally joined the company’s ANYBET GmbH subsidiary in 2003 as head of B2B services before later becoming general manager of the mybet (then named JAXX) operations in Austria. The platform director, who has held the role since February 2010, was also MD for the UK business from 2006. this approach is also very labour intensive. By deploying a data analytics engine that is both adaptive and behavioural it is possible to not only reduce fraud, but also to predict and prevent it before it happens. "The industry almost comes to expect a certain amount of fraud to occur" David Excell, Featurespace Behavioural analytics also gives companies the ability to build a unique profile of each customer’s individual behaviour. Adaptive behavioural analytics give an accurate, real-time view of constantly moving interactions, enabling brands to detect changes in as little as 100 milliseconds. This has benefits beyond fraud as it’s also able to detect when a gamer is becoming addicted and therefore target them with responsible gaming advice often before they even know they have a problem. Because the system is instant and self-learning it helps reduce the need for manual intervention, improving business efficiency and allowing for human resources to be redirected. The ability to judge customers' behavioural patterns also reduces false positives, allowing for more good customers to be accepted. Like watching a gambler at the slot machine, behavioural analytics allows operators to build a clear, accurate and instant profile of each customer in a way never before achievable. MONTH STEFAN ZENKER SANDRA BEVEC Head of international relations A mybet veteran, Zenker has been at the operator for 14 years after he joined one year following the original launch of the company as FLUXX AG in 1998. During his time at Frankfurt-listed mybet, Zenker has also held the role of managing director at its subsidiary ANYBET GmbH. Casino and games manager In her current role at mybet Sandra leads the company’s casino product offering and its promotions and CRM. Bevec has previous experience in the online casino market after holding the role of COO at Casiopea Group for three years where she was in charge of its casino operation. 9