The Spanish government recently published a series of official technical guidelines for the online gambling industry concerning how to properly detect and prevent fraudulent activity. The entire document can be accessed at the DGOJ website, although it is, of course, in Spanish. The guidelines are intended to help ensure that all operators with a Spanish license have in place suitable procedures to prevent fraud. Operators had previously been expected to comply with a vaguely defined fraud manual, but the Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ) had never before issued detailed guidance of this kind.
In the document, the DGOJ lays out the most common types of fraud which take place in online gambling. The most prominent discussed is probably identity fraud – the intentional entry of incorrect personal details by a user. The greatest risks of such activity are underage or banned gamblers playing on a given site, but they may also include those who have inside knowledge of sports data, gamblers who play on behalf of other users, and gamblers aiming to clear multiple bonuses on a single site by multi-accounting.
The remaining areas covered are payment method fraud, origin of funds fraud, match-fixing activity and geolocation fraud, or the use of virtual private networks to disguise a player’s location (for example, players located in Spain accessing sites which are not licensed for play within Spain.)
The DGOJ gives guidance on proper practice in cases of user fraud, including when to suspend a player’s account and various other measures, and offers details on how to implement preventive measures such as digital onboarding.
