What is Matched Betting?

Matched betting is a betting strategy used by individuals to profit from the free bets and incentives offered by bookmakers. It’s generally considered risk-free as it’s based on the application of a mathematical equation rather than chance. However, it’s important to note that while matched betting is not illegal, it is often against the terms and conditions of bookmakers.

How Does Matched Betting Work?

1. Find a Free Bet: The first step is to find a free bet offer from a bookmaker.
2. Place a Qualifying Bet: You then place a bet with the bookmaker to qualify for the free bet.
3. Lay the Bet: To ensure this bet is risk-free, you place a lay bet at a betting exchange. This means you bet against your original bet.
4. Use the Free Bet: Once you receive your free bet, repeat the process. However, since this bet is free, you’ll make a profit regardless of the outcome.

The Risks: Terms and Conditions

While matched betting itself isn’t illegal, it’s against the terms and conditions of most bookmakers. Engaging in this activity can result in your account being restricted or closed.

Technology and Detection of Matched Betting

Bookmakers can use various technologies to detect and prevent matched betting:

1. Device Fingerprinting: Bookmakers can use device fingerprinting technology to track devices used for placing bets. If they detect multiple accounts operated from the same device, it might indicate matched betting.

2. Know Your Customer (KYC): KYC checks help bookmakers verify the identity of their customers. Through KYC, they can detect if the same individual is operating multiple accounts.

3. Betting Patterns Analysis: Bookmakers often use sophisticated algorithms to analyze betting patterns. Consistently betting in a way that only benefits from free bets and promotions can be a red flag.

4. IP Address and Geo-Location Tracking: Tracking the IP address and geo-location can help identify if multiple accounts are being accessed from the same location.

5. Analysis of Financial Transactions: Monitoring deposits, withdrawals, and transfer patterns can also help in detecting matched betting activities.

How can Honey Badger help?

Use Honey Badger to run device fingerprinting, KYC and other risk checks when a new customer is onboarded. While device fingerprinting will detect multiple accounts opened from the same device, a lightweight mobile KYC verification will catch more sophisticated users who try to bypass such measures. Using the two features together ensures the highest chance of blocking bad actors. To find out more visit Honey Badger’s Risk Insights page.

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Account Servicing

Stop fraud and improve customer experience during account servicing by eliminating SMS One Time Passwords (OTP). Instead, leverage phone based SIM authentication which involves comparing data generated by the Mobile Network Operator (MNO) with mobile device session data. This provides a foolproof way of proving that an individual is in possession of their two-factor device.

Benefits

This new approach to authentication isn’t susceptible to SIM swap attacks and doesn’t require the user to enter a password. Ultimately, account takeover attacks are blocked, while customer experience is improved and the time taken to service a request us reduced.

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Contact Data Cleaning

Contact Data Cleansing verifies that the contact and personal information you hold isn’t out of date or inaccurate. Data is compared against the information held on file by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Whether processing a single record or sanitising thousands of records in batch, you’ll quickly identify bad data.

Benefits

The case for maintaining up-to-date records goes way beyond good practice for compliance and regulatory reasons. It’s critical to ensuring customers are contactable. Furthermore, it reduces security threats by ensuring communications aren’t sent to the incorrect individuals.

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SIM Swap Detection

SIM Swap Detection is a critical step in stopping account takeover. Why? Because account takeover attacks commonly exploit the ease of which a phone number can be stolen by simply assigning it to a new SIM. This allows bad actors to intercept communications, such as SMS one-time-passwords (OTP), which are used by 93% of enterprises worldwide to verify customers.

Benefits

SIM Swap Detection instantly and silently checks the history of a SIM card to see when it was last swapped. Recent swaps indicate high risk of fraud, allowing you to take appropriate action, such as failing verification or requesting additional security procedures are followed.

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Social Trace

Social Trace significantly reduces the risk of losing contact with your customers by diversifying communication channels. Simply drop the Social Trace widget into your onboarding workflow and allow customers to connect one or more social channels with just a click.

Benefits

Lenders who capture social channels are significantly less likely to lose contact with their customers. Why? Because different demographics prefer to engage over different channels. This is particularly important when it comes to collections. Initiating contact over different channels increases your chances of getting a response, which in turn increases the likelihood of resolving late or non payment. 

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Mobile Fraud Check

Mobile Fraud Check allow you detect fraud indicators using data provided by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Key checks include device overseas, call forwarding, SIM swap, a high risk number database lookup and much more.

Furthermore, Mobile Fraud KYC allows you to verify a person’s firstname, lastname, date of birth and postcode against the data held on file by MNOs. Since MNOs conduct their own KYC checks on new customers, it gives you the ability to match personal information you collect against a trusted and verified source.

Benefits

Mobile Fraud Checks happen instantly and with zero customer friction. The data held by MNOs is often more recent and reliable than other data sources and a level of granularity is provided,  allowing you to see how many and which KYC fields matched.

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Mobile Data for Credit Risk

Mobile Data for Credit Risk delivers the data required to predict credit risk based on a persons mobile phone information. Key data attributes include the network provider, line type, and KYC match information. Working in partnership with lenders we’ve been able to clearly identify correlations between this data and the likelihood of a loan going into arrears.

Benefits

Open Banking Vs Mobile Data. Which is the most effective in predicting bad borrowers? A recent project with a UK lender compared a risk model built with Open Banking against a model built with Honey Badger’s Mobile Data. The results showed that both models outputted almost identical risk scores. The difference? Mobile Data could be deployed immediately with no customer friction required to calculate a risk score.

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Geo Authentication

Geo Authentication™ provides frictionless identity verification that reduces abandonment rates. Users simply select images that they recognise from nearby to their address. In built anti-fraud controls ensure that valid users can complete the challenge whilst bad actors are blocked.

Benefits

Leading lenders such as Amplifi Capital use Geo Authentication during applications as an alternative to more intrusive identity verification checks, such as document uploads, that cause high friction and lead to increased dropouts. Completion rates with Geo Authentication are 28% higher and have subsequently helped drive an increase in revenue for the business.

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