Strange as it may seem, but no, scammers will easily sue (and win) if the bookmaker simply freezes their money. Therefore, when bookmakers detect fraud, they do not freeze money, do not go to the police (except in extreme cases), but simply return bets on a suspicious event with a coefficient of 1 (just a return of the bet). For them, it is much easier than doing investigations, courts, etc. while scammers immediately fall into a huge minus (since the organization of fixed games obviously costs a lot of money).
That's quite surprising. I can't verify now whether it is true what you say, but I just assume it is as you probably quite a bit more about gambling than me. It it does make sense what you say when professional scammers are involved in getting account frozen. They will have a bullet proof set up I assume to exactly counter such an action from a bookmaker.
But this reminds me of insurance companies to have huge departments that deal day in and day out with hypothetical accidents and even conduct scientific research on whether or not a certain could in practice have happened the way a claimant describes it. As much as insurance fraud is a thing, I wonder whether it would make sense for bookmakers to also build an alliance and create a department that collects data and investigates suspicious causes around the clock. Over time that database could become valuable. Fraudsters will get family members involved and friends and then strangers who get also bribed if they try to get away and not show up in a database for suspects. But over time the fraudsters' alternatives might also decrease.
Since it is a multi-billion dollar business I just would have thought that they are running sophisticated investigation departments even across different platforms.
If someone is KYCed and you realize that he repeatedly is involved in suspicious cases, you just exclude him from your platform and share that info with all other bookmakers. Something like that could enfold an effect over time.
If we draw an analogy with the insurance business, then it is more correct to compare minor cases, rather than deaths and other accidents with millions of payments. As you probably know, for minor accidents, insurance companies usually pay (in civilized countries) simply upon the fact of the application without any examinations and other nonsense, since even if the applicant lies, it will be more expensive to catch him on this lie. So, by analogy, it’s cheaper for bookmakers to simply return bets than to deal with scammers where the result is not guaranteed.
Hmmm... I don't think I fully agree here because I know many cases where car accidents with damages in the four figure range have been thoroughly investigated, I can tell you that! It is not only about individual cases that are investigated, but they conduct research on specific accidental set ups and then see whether logic and physics apply in such a realistic way that the case described by the claimant is more likely to happened or not. The same applies to damages with laptops, for instance when you say that it fell off the table. I have seen a documentary where they take laptops and let them drop from all kinds of heights and angles, then they ask they claimants for the height and angle and compare it to their damage patterns.
So I guess you know what I mean when I say that bookmakers could create collaborative data banks about patterns or when it comes to persona data, perhaps they need to take care of data privacy laws, but they could use encrypted IDs for suspects and just flag someone and if another bookie has a suspicion and flags the same user, they could exclude him or her from playing. You know, there should be away for them to coordinate collaborative efforts in order to more effectively tackle scammers.
But ultimately you are right I guess because the scammers will adapt anyway. I suppose there will always be ways for scammers to circumvent newly created "hurdles".
