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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/
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This December, Tom Horn Gaming invites players to the snowy mountain peaks in its new release, Santa Yetti, a playful holiday adventure where the jolly king of the mountains swaps his sleigh for snow boots to deliver frosty fortunes and festive fun.
Santa Yetti brings a flurry of excitement to the reels with Expanding Wilds, Multipliers, Respins, and the Respin Booster feature.
The Snowman is a Wild symbol. When it lands on any of the three reels, it expands and triggers a single respin. During the respin, seven win lines transform into twenty-seven ways to win, piling up prizes like Christmas presents. When all three reels are fully stacked with the same symbol, the total win is multiplied by ten, creating a snowstorm of rewards.
Players can also activate the Respin Booster, which increases their total bet by 1.5x and boosts the chance of triggering a respin by 300%. The feature remains active until manually switched off, giving players full control over their gameplay. For those feeling extra lucky, the Star Gamble Ladder appears after every base game win, allowing them to gamble their winnings by guessing the next star’s colour – pink or blue. Each correct guess doubles the prize and pushes the player up one level. The Golden Star can randomly appear at levels two to five to double the win instantly, no guess required.
“Santa Yeti brings together everything players love about Tom Horn games – fun, engaging mechanics, and a great story to match. It’s festive, it’s fresh, and it’s packed with features that keep the excitement rolling. We wanted to end the year on a high note, and Santa Yetti does exactly that with humour, charm, and plenty of win potential,” said Ondrej Lapides, CEO at Tom Horn Gaming.
Blending simple yet fast-paced gameplay with dynamic mechanics, Santa Yetti offers short, mobile-optimised sessions that are sure to delight both casual spinners and seasoned players. Its engaging format and rewarding features make it a perfect choice for operators looking to boost engagement during the high-traffic festive season. With its playful theme, quirky light-hearted style, and generous win potential, Santa Yetti is set to make this Christmas truly santastic.
The post Tom Horn Gaming Unwraps a Frosty Treat with Santa Yetti appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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Emily Tofield has been the appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer of Ygam, the UK’s leading charity dedicated to preventing gaming and gambling harms among children and young people. She will officially join the charity on the 6 January 2026.
Emily joins the charity following a 20-year career in leadership roles across UK government, local government, higher education and research, the media, and the not-for-profit sector. Her previous roles include posts in the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, the University of Sussex, and at the City of London Corporation. With a distinguished breadth of expertise in strategic communications, she is recognised as a leading adviser across strategy, corporate affairs, reputation, marketing, policy, and fundraising.
Emily is an experienced non-executive, currently serving on the board of the Kent homelessness charity, Porchlight. She is Chair Designate of the Girls’ Learning Trust (GLT), the largest all-girls state multi-academy trust in the UK and was recently appointed to the Board of the British Dietetic Association (BDA).
Mike Wojcik, Chair of Ygam, said: “I’m delighted to welcome Emily to Ygam following a highly competitive recruitment process. Her depth of experience and proven leadership across stakeholder and political engagement, and social impact, will be instrumental as we enter our next strategic cycle. Emily joins an exceptionally strong leadership team, and this appointment marks an important new chapter for Ygam as we continue to strengthen our position as a trusted expert voice and sector leader dedicated to preventing gaming, gambling, and digital harms among young people.”
Emily Tofield, Incoming Chief Executive of Ygam, said: “Ygam has reached record numbers of young people as part of its critical mission to protect children and young people from gaming and gambling harms and to help safeguard their digital futures. As a passionate advocate for the benefits of prevention, it is a huge privilege to take on the role of Chief Executive of such a respected national education and prevention charity whose work already makes a difference to so many. High-quality, inclusive, evidence-based, preventative education around gaming and gambling harms remains as important today as when Ygam was founded, and I’m looking forward to working with the impressive Ygam team to further grow its reach, partnerships and impact in the years ahead.”
The post Ygam appoints Emily Tofield as new Chief Executive appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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- bet-at-home integrates ZEAL Instant Games titles into its German website
- First selection of ZEAL slots now available
- Partnership boosts reach, portfolio strength, and growth for both companies
ZEAL Instant Games, a brand of the ZEAL Group and a provider of online games, announces a new strategic partnership with online gaming operator bet-at-home. As part of the collaboration, bet-at-home seamlessly integrates the growing portfolio of ZEAL slots into its website. The first titles are already available to customers on bet-at-home.de.
Stronger together: Premium content meets established brand presence
Both partners stand to benefit from the collaboration: While bet-at-home expands its portfolio offering with ZEAL titles – enhancing its appeal and reach within the online games segment – ZEAL Instant Games gains another prominent partner whose market presence accelerates the brand’s dynamic growth and enables access to a broader user base.
In addition to best-selling ZEAL titles such as “The Bookmaker”, “Crime Scene”, “Vegas Blaze“, and other premium slots, the portfolio will continue to grow steadily in the coming months.
Shared perspectives
“Our mission is to make innovative, high-quality games accessible to the widest possible audience,” says Alex Green, Vice President Games at ZEAL. “With bet-at-home, we are gaining a partner that has held a strong position in the market for many years. This collaboration opens up new opportunities for expanding our reach and underscores the enormous potential of our growing games portfolio.”
From bet-at-home’s side: “We are delighted to have ZEAL Instant Games as a partner known for quality, creativity, and reliable performance,” says Claus Retschitzegger, CEO, bet-at-home. “The new ZEAL titles are a great addition to our offering and provide our customers with exciting and varied gaming experiences. This partnership is an important element of our growth strategy.”
The post ZEAL and bet-at-home launch joint gaming initiative appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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