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As eSports become more popular, time for the industry to get real about security
Police in Ukraine recently seized 3,800 PlayStation 4 consoles, which currently retail for around 290 each, and found to their surprise that the operation wasn’t mining cryptocurrency as they assumed but was in fact being used to generate content packs for FIFA Ultimate Team, a popular game mode in the FIFA football series.
The raid and its results underline a fact that may escape more traditionally minded members of the gaming community: eSports is a major industry, and like any industry it is susceptible to fraud. The fact that the games themselves take place virtually is irrelevant to fraudsters who can use the familiar toolkit of multi-accounting, bonus abuse and affiliate fraud to earn thousands.
With many sports teams unable to play throughout much of 2020 and 2021, eSports grew massively. League Championship Series (LCS), one of the largest eSports leagues, became the third most viewed professional sports league amongst 18-34 year olds in the U.S and has retained its corporate sponsors at a time when other leagues were shut down. Success stories like these are blunted by how pervasive eSports fraud is,
So, what kinds of fraud are taking place in eSports, what is it costing eSports organizations and what can be done to stop it?
What kinds of fraud are possible in eSports?
eSports attracts very similar types of fraud to regular sports betting, including:
- Bonus Abuse: Like other sports betting companies, eSports companies often give sign-up bonuses such as free bets to new players. By coding automated systems, a fraudster can sign up to hundreds of accounts and use the free bets to win real money. This can cost gaming companies up to 15% of their revenue.
- Multi-accounting: Similarly, a fraudster can use multiple accounts to perform other types of fraud, such as matched betting, ‘smurfing’ or arbitrage of affiliate fraud.
- Affiliate Fraud: Those eSports betting organizations that draw in some of their new players from affiliates are vulnerable to affiliate fraud in which an affiliate creates fake accounts to gain the pay-out.
- Account takeover: Using lists of passwords from data breaches, keyloggers or phishing a fraudster can gain access to a player’s account and drain their funds.
- Chargeback fraud: A player, who may be a legitimate gamer and not a professional fraudster, initiates a chargeback on a transaction. This is common in gaming when gamblers regret a bad bet and claim that their account was hacked.
The costs of eSports fraud
Fraud costs have a way of snowballing, with each $1 lost through fraud actually costing companies $3. The above techniques are hardly equivalent to the major data breaches of major banking and tech companies that cost on average $3.86 million, but the constant barrage of low-level frauds can soon drain your company’s security budget. Aside from the cost of the fraud itself, there are a number of hidden costs such as:
- Chargeback losses: Investigating and disputing chargebacks will take up your risk team’s time, leaving them little time for more valuable activities. More worryingly, a company with a large number of chargebacks is likely to find it difficult securing credit or loans. Visa and Mastercard’s resolution processes are making things even more difficult for merchants, so you are likely to lose even more.
- Affiliate budget waste: You could be paying for useless clicks from bot networks rather than legitimate customers, wasting your marketing budget and reducing overall ROI.
- Reputational damage: Once word of mouth spreads about customers losing the entire bank accounts to account takeovers it will not be long until players start deserting your site.
- Regulatory fines: The regulations around eSports are not as stringent as with other sports betting, but it will not be long before they catch up. With the industry growing it will not be long before countries put regulations in place to protect players, and without stringent security your company could be fined.
The solutions
You will notice that the majority of the types of fraud common in eSports have to do with fake accounts. These are easy for fraudsters to create using the wealth of publicly available data and leaked information, but fortunately artificial intelligence-based tools have been developed that allow companies to spot synthetic identities.
Through device fingerprinting, email profiling and IP analysis a complete picture of a new signup to your site can be created, allowing software to spot the tell-tale signs of a hastily created account. For example, it could find that an email address does not match any social accounts, or that they use VPNs and data centers to conceal their IP address.
Of course, a sophisticated fraudster could create a convincing fake identity, especially with the wealth of information available from data dumps, so modern technology can also spot the use of pre-paid credit cards or even the speed with which information is entered, which could indicate it is being filled in automatically by a script.
By combining data points from a large and ever-growing set a system can determine whether it is likely that any given new account is fraudulent. For the many cases in which it will not be fully clear whether an account is authentic or not adaptive Know Your Customer checks can be used – customers with several red flags will be given full tests to determine their identity whereas other customers will have less obtrusive tests for a smoother site experience.
eSports has gone from a niche concern to an Olympic sport in a few short years, and that success is going to attract fraud, so it is vital for the industry to pre-emptively defend against fraud by adopting the very highest levels of security.
To learn more, visit: https://seon.io/
Following Meta’s algorithm updates, many media buying teams found it much more difficult to scale Facebook traffic. Customer acquisition costs increased, advertising accounts became less stable, and even successful campaign combinations lost their effectiveness faster.
In the new Success Story, N1 Partners explains how they helped a media buying team specializing in Facebook traffic for the iGaming vertical adapt to changing market conditions and successfully scale traffic acquisition across Tier-1 GEOs.
The results after nine months of collaboration were impressive: a 155% increase in FTDs, 135% ROI, and a 22% reduction in average CPA.
About partner
The featured partner is a media buying team with four years of experience in affiliate marketing, specializing in Facebook traffic acquisition for iGaming products.
At the beginning of the partnership, the team was already working with Tier-1 GEOs, including Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and Australia. They consistently identified profitable campaign combinations but encountered the typical scaling limitations faced by many teams in the industry.
To continue growing, they needed a partner offering high-quality products with strong Reg2Dep and LTV performance, reliable payouts, and responsive support capable of handling increasing traffic volumes.
Why did they choose N1 Partners?
Several factors influenced their decision:
- High Reg2Dep rates;
- Strong player LTV performance;
- Reliable and consistent payouts;
- Fast and responsive affiliate manager support;
- The ability to work with multiple brands within a single ecosystem.
For the initial testing phase, the team selected N1 Bet, RollXO, Lucky Hunter, and Retro Bet.
| “Working with several brands at the same time gave the team much greater flexibility. Whenever one product started losing performance, we could quickly redirect traffic to another brand without interrupting our buying activity,” explained Polina Bogatko, Affiliate Manager N1 Partners. |
Preparing for launch
Before launching the campaigns, N1 Partners specialists analyzed the partner’s previous performance and proposed a structured testing plan.
Instead of focusing on a single offer, they decided to test multiple brands simultaneously. This approach allowed them to identify much faster which products performed best with Facebook traffic in each GEO.
At the start, the partner also received several recommendations:
- Start with the CPA payment model;
- Separate advertising campaigns by audience type;
- Build dedicated landing pages for each GEO instead of using one universal funnel;
- Test broad audiences without narrow interest-based targeting;
- Use multiple creative formats;
- Evaluate not only registration costs but also the quality of acquired players.
This strategy helped identify promising campaign combinations early while preventing unnecessary spending on underperforming campaigns.
Choosing GEOs, offers and creatives
N1 Partners affiliate manager shared internal performance data highlighting products that consistently delivered strong results with Facebook traffic.
For the first stage, three high-potential GEOs with stable demand were selected:
- Canada;
- Germany;
- New Zealand.
Australia was intentionally excluded from the initial testing phase to concentrate the available budget on fewer markets and collect meaningful data more quickly.
Offers were selected primarily based on two key metrics: deposit conversion rate and player quality. Among all available brands, the selected products consistently demonstrated the strongest overall performance.
For every GEO, the team created special creatives featuring localized visual elements and market-specific bonus offers.
Workflow organization
After launch, specialists from N1 Partners worked alongside the partner on a daily basis, analyzing campaign performance and deciding on the next optimization steps.
| “Regular data sharing allowed us to detect changes almost immediately. We didn’t wait until the end of the week, we adjusted offers, budgets, and creatives as soon as we saw a consistent performance signal,” noted Polina Bogatko, Affiliate Manager N1 Partners. |
Teams closely monitored:
- Reg2Dep and LTV;
- Player quality;
- Budget allocation between products;
- Individual GEO performance;
- Results of newly launched creatives.
Most operational questions were resolved by the affiliate manager within a few hours. This allowed the partner to quickly switch offers and launch additional tests without interrupting traffic acquisition.
Initial hypotheses
During the preparation phase, N1 Partners suggested testing several working hypotheses:
- Video creatives could outperform static banners;
- Different advertising concepts might attract audiences of different quality;
- Rapid budget increases could reduce campaign stability;
- Evaluating traffic solely based on acquisition cost does not reflect its actual value.
The team tested lifestyle creatives, game-focused concepts, bonus offers, and social proof elements. Budgets were increased gradually, while campaign performance was evaluated not only by CPA but also by player behavior after making their first deposit.
| “The ability to compare several brands simultaneously played a crucial role. Whenever statistics indicated a decline in traffic quality, we suggested another product or reallocated the budget. This helped maintain acquisition momentum without relying on a single offer,” commented Polina Bogatko, Affiliate Manager N1 Partners. |
Strategy and optimization
After the initial testing phase, the team focused on increasing traffic volumes without compromising player quality.
To achieve this, the partner:
- Duplicated the highest-performing campaigns;
- Regularly launched new creatives;
- Split campaigns by device type;
- Applied successful approaches to markets with similar audience characteristics.
At the same time, budgets were increased gradually, helping maintain campaign stability while keeping CPA within the target range.
What delivered the best results?
Four optimization strategies produced the strongest performance improvements:
- Creative localization;
- Continuous production of fresh advertising materials;
- Pausing underperforming campaign combinations within the first 48 hours;
- Optimizing based on player quality rather than CPA alone.
At one stage of the campaign, the affiliate manager noticed that one of the brands was achieving a significantly higher Reg2Dep rate from Facebook traffic in Canada.
After jointly reviewing the data, part of the advertising budget was shifted toward that product.
| “The decision was based on more than just the number of deposits. We also evaluated player LTV and repeated activity. After reallocating the budget, profitability increased, and further scaling became much more stable,” said Polina Bogatko, Affiliate Manager N1 Partners. |
Results
After nine months of collaboration, every key performance indicator improved significantly.
- Monthly FTDs increased from 450 to 1,150 (+155%);
- ROI increased from 86% to 135%;
- Average CPA decreased by 22%;
- Revenue increased by approximately 2.5 times;
- Player LTV increased by 25%.
The most important achievement was not a single successful campaign but the creation of a sustainable Facebook traffic acquisition model. The partner was able to continuously scale traffic across Tier-1 GEOs without experiencing a proportional increase in acquisition costs.
Key takeaways
- What was the biggest advantage of working with N1 Partners?
According to the media buying team, working with N1 Partners helped establish a clear and scalable traffic acquisition process.
The main contributing factors were high-quality products, strong Reg2Dep performance, and constant communication with the affiliate manager. The team also emphasized that N1 Partners specialists proactively suggested new testing hypotheses before market changes began noticeably affecting campaign performance. This allowed them to stay ahead of industry trends instead of reacting only after performance had already declined.
- What made the results possible?
Polina Bogatko, Affiliate Manager N1 Partners: “The biggest factor behind our success was the partner’s willingness to continuously test new approaches. We evaluated not only Facebook campaign metrics but also player quality for every brand and GEO. This enabled us to redistribute budgets quickly and focus on the most promising campaign combinations.
After launching localized creatives and testing new audiences, the number of FTDs in Canada nearly doubled within just a few weeks, while campaign ROI remained stable. This clearly demonstrated the importance of continuous testing, fast analytics, and close collaboration between both teams”.
Scale your Facebook traffic with N1 Partners!
N1 Partners gives affiliates access to:
- 14+ casino and betting brands with high Reg2Dep
- 10+ Tier-1 GEOs
- CPA up to €700 and RevShare up to 55% + NNCO for top partners
Be number one with N1!
The post FB Success Story +155% FTD, 135% ROI appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Following Meta’s algorithm updates, many media buying teams found it much more difficult to scale Facebook traffic. Customer acquisition costs increased, advertising accounts became less stable, and even successful campaign combinations lost their effectiveness faster.
In the new Success Story, N1 Partners explains how they helped a media buying team specializing in Facebook traffic for the iGaming vertical adapt to changing market conditions and successfully scale traffic acquisition across Tier-1 GEOs.
The results after nine months of collaboration were impressive: a 155% increase in FTDs, 135% ROI, and a 22% reduction in average CPA.
About partner
The featured partner is a media buying team with four years of experience in affiliate marketing, specializing in Facebook traffic acquisition for iGaming products.
At the beginning of the partnership, the team was already working with Tier-1 GEOs, including Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and Australia. They consistently identified profitable campaign combinations but encountered the typical scaling limitations faced by many teams in the industry.
To continue growing, they needed a partner offering high-quality products with strong Reg2Dep and LTV performance, reliable payouts, and responsive support capable of handling increasing traffic volumes.
Why did they choose N1 Partners?
Several factors influenced their decision:
- High Reg2Dep rates;
- Strong player LTV performance;
- Reliable and consistent payouts;
- Fast and responsive affiliate manager support;
- The ability to work with multiple brands within a single ecosystem.
For the initial testing phase, the team selected N1 Bet, RollXO, Lucky Hunter, and Retro Bet.
| “Working with several brands at the same time gave the team much greater flexibility. Whenever one product started losing performance, we could quickly redirect traffic to another brand without interrupting our buying activity,” explained Polina Bogatko, Affiliate Manager N1 Partners. |
Preparing for launch
Before launching the campaigns, N1 Partners specialists analyzed the partner’s previous performance and proposed a structured testing plan.
Instead of focusing on a single offer, they decided to test multiple brands simultaneously. This approach allowed them to identify much faster which products performed best with Facebook traffic in each GEO.
At the start, the partner also received several recommendations:
- Start with the CPA payment model;
- Separate advertising campaigns by audience type;
- Build dedicated landing pages for each GEO instead of using one universal funnel;
- Test broad audiences without narrow interest-based targeting;
- Use multiple creative formats;
- Evaluate not only registration costs but also the quality of acquired players.
This strategy helped identify promising campaign combinations early while preventing unnecessary spending on underperforming campaigns.
Choosing GEOs, offers and creatives
N1 Partners affiliate manager shared internal performance data highlighting products that consistently delivered strong results with Facebook traffic.
For the first stage, three high-potential GEOs with stable demand were selected:
- Canada;
- Germany;
- New Zealand.
Australia was intentionally excluded from the initial testing phase to concentrate the available budget on fewer markets and collect meaningful data more quickly.
Offers were selected primarily based on two key metrics: deposit conversion rate and player quality. Among all available brands, the selected products consistently demonstrated the strongest overall performance.
For every GEO, the team created special creatives featuring localized visual elements and market-specific bonus offers.
Workflow organization
After launch, specialists from N1 Partners worked alongside the partner on a daily basis, analyzing campaign performance and deciding on the next optimization steps.
| “Regular data sharing allowed us to detect changes almost immediately. We didn’t wait until the end of the week, we adjusted offers, budgets, and creatives as soon as we saw a consistent performance signal,” noted Polina Bogatko, Affiliate Manager N1 Partners. |
Teams closely monitored:
- Reg2Dep and LTV;
- Player quality;
- Budget allocation between products;
- Individual GEO performance;
- Results of newly launched creatives.
Most operational questions were resolved by the affiliate manager within a few hours. This allowed the partner to quickly switch offers and launch additional tests without interrupting traffic acquisition.
Initial hypotheses
During the preparation phase, N1 Partners suggested testing several working hypotheses:
- Video creatives could outperform static banners;
- Different advertising concepts might attract audiences of different quality;
- Rapid budget increases could reduce campaign stability;
- Evaluating traffic solely based on acquisition cost does not reflect its actual value.
The team tested lifestyle creatives, game-focused concepts, bonus offers, and social proof elements. Budgets were increased gradually, while campaign performance was evaluated not only by CPA but also by player behavior after making their first deposit.
| “The ability to compare several brands simultaneously played a crucial role. Whenever statistics indicated a decline in traffic quality, we suggested another product or reallocated the budget. This helped maintain acquisition momentum without relying on a single offer,” commented Polina Bogatko, Affiliate Manager N1 Partners. |
Strategy and optimization
After the initial testing phase, the team focused on increasing traffic volumes without compromising player quality.
To achieve this, the partner:
- Duplicated the highest-performing campaigns;
- Regularly launched new creatives;
- Split campaigns by device type;
- Applied successful approaches to markets with similar audience characteristics.
At the same time, budgets were increased gradually, helping maintain campaign stability while keeping CPA within the target range.
What delivered the best results?
Four optimization strategies produced the strongest performance improvements:
- Creative localization;
- Continuous production of fresh advertising materials;
- Pausing underperforming campaign combinations within the first 48 hours;
- Optimizing based on player quality rather than CPA alone.
At one stage of the campaign, the affiliate manager noticed that one of the brands was achieving a significantly higher Reg2Dep rate from Facebook traffic in Canada.
After jointly reviewing the data, part of the advertising budget was shifted toward that product.
| “The decision was based on more than just the number of deposits. We also evaluated player LTV and repeated activity. After reallocating the budget, profitability increased, and further scaling became much more stable,” said Polina Bogatko, Affiliate Manager N1 Partners. |
Results
After nine months of collaboration, every key performance indicator improved significantly.
- Monthly FTDs increased from 450 to 1,150 (+155%);
- ROI increased from 86% to 135%;
- Average CPA decreased by 22%;
- Revenue increased by approximately 2.5 times;
- Player LTV increased by 25%.
The most important achievement was not a single successful campaign but the creation of a sustainable Facebook traffic acquisition model. The partner was able to continuously scale traffic across Tier-1 GEOs without experiencing a proportional increase in acquisition costs.
Key takeaways
- What was the biggest advantage of working with N1 Partners?
According to the media buying team, working with N1 Partners helped establish a clear and scalable traffic acquisition process.
The main contributing factors were high-quality products, strong Reg2Dep performance, and constant communication with the affiliate manager. The team also emphasized that N1 Partners specialists proactively suggested new testing hypotheses before market changes began noticeably affecting campaign performance. This allowed them to stay ahead of industry trends instead of reacting only after performance had already declined.
- What made the results possible?
Polina Bogatko, Affiliate Manager N1 Partners: “The biggest factor behind our success was the partner’s willingness to continuously test new approaches. We evaluated not only Facebook campaign metrics but also player quality for every brand and GEO. This enabled us to redistribute budgets quickly and focus on the most promising campaign combinations.
After launching localized creatives and testing new audiences, the number of FTDs in Canada nearly doubled within just a few weeks, while campaign ROI remained stable. This clearly demonstrated the importance of continuous testing, fast analytics, and close collaboration between both teams”.
Scale your Facebook traffic with N1 Partners!
N1 Partners gives affiliates access to:
- 14+ casino and betting brands with high Reg2Dep
- 10+ Tier-1 GEOs
- CPA up to €700 and RevShare up to 55% + NNCO for top partners
Be number one with N1!
The post FB Success Story +155% FTD, 135% ROI appeared first on Americas iGaming & Sports Betting News.
The updated slot launches on Lottomart for UK players on 23rd July with a new bonus wheel and higher max win.
Blueprint Gaming is releasing an upgraded version of Super Graphics Upside Down exclusively on Lottomart from 23rd July, giving Lottomart’s UK players early access to the title.
Originally launched in 2021, Super Graphics Upside Down is being re-released with a new bonus wheel feature and an increased max win potential, rising from 250X to 3000X, according to the companies.
Chris Ruddock, Commercial Director at Lottomart, said:
“Securing an early release exclusive on the new Super Graphics Upside Down is another exciting milestone for Lottomart. Blueprint Gaming has upgraded a fantastic game with engaging new features and bigger win potential, and we’re delighted to offer this game exclusively to our UK players.”
Elliott Kyne, Account Manager at Blueprint Gaming, said:
“We’re delighted to support Lottomart with the exclusive UK launch of Super Graphics Upside Down. It’s also pleasing to see our partnership continue to go from strength to strength, and Lottomart’s impressive growth and UK focus has made them a match made in heaven for Blueprint’s content. We’re SUPER excited to bring this latest release to their players.”
The companies said the launch is part of their ongoing partnership, with Blueprint Gaming providing exclusive content as Lottomart expands its UK presence.
The post Blueprint Gaming upgrades Super Graphics Upside Down for Lottomart exclusive appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
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