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Disconnected ID Checks Are Costing Online Gamblers Legitimate Players

By jili tutorial · September 26, 2026

Disconnected ID Checks Are Costing Online Gamblers Legitimate Players

A growing chorus of voices inside the digital identity industry argues that the biggest threat to online gambling operators isn’t fraudsters—it’s their own disjointed tech stacks. When different systems evaluate the same piece of customer data at different points in the journey, they can reach completely different conclusions. The result: a player who was trustworthy enough to start registering suddenly finds themselves locked out, challenged, or rejected moments later.

Caleb Sims, Head of Gaming GTM at the digital identity verification company Prove, says this problem is entirely avoidable. The solution, he believes, lies in thinking about identity not as a checklist of one-off checks, but as a continuous thread that follows the player from the moment they land on a site—and long after their first deposit clears.

The Core Problem: When Identity Systems Disagree

To understand why legitimate players get rejected, you first have to understand how modern onboarding stacks are built. It is common, Sims explains, for operators to use one provider to pre-fill an application form and a second provider to verify the identity behind it. That might sound reasonable in theory, but the two vendors don’t share a brain.

Why Do Identity Systems Reach Different Conclusions?

Every identity verification provider maintains its own databases, draws from different data sources, and—critically—uses different matching logic to decide whether a piece of information is valid. A name and address that match perfectly against one provider’s records might throw a red flag in another’s. One system might consider a phone number reputable because it has existed for years; another might flag it because it isn’t found in its own telco datasets.

That creates a dangerous gap. The pre-fill provider has already looked at the player’s information and seen enough signal to populate the application. But when that same information is handed off to the verification provider, the second system is effectively starting over. It has no memory of the first check, no context about why certain data was accepted, and no way to know that the person filling out the form is the same one whose details were just verified milliseconds earlier.

“You can have a player whose information was trusted enough to populate the application, only for that same information to be re-evaluated differently a few seconds later,” Sims told Gambling Insider. “Context gets lost between the two systems, and a legitimate player can end up being challenged or rejected.”

The True Cost of a False Rejection

For operators, the consequences are painful. An abandoned registration is not just a lost player—it’s wasted marketing spend, diminished brand trust, and a small but compounding drain on customer acquisition budgets. In a market where acquisition costs continue to climb, every lost registration matters. And while regulators and responsible gambling advocates have historically focused on the risks of fraud slipping through, there is a quiet counter-problem that costs operators just as much: legitimate users being pushed away by clumsy, disconnected checks.

Identity as Infrastructure, Not a Series of Hoops

Sims argues that the industry has been thinking about identity verification the wrong way. Instead of treating it as a series of discrete, unrelated hurdles, operators should treat it as infrastructure—like plumbing or electricity. It should run in the background, feeding confidence into every transaction without requiring the user to constantly re-prove who they are.

“If I already have strong evidence that you possess the phone, that the phone has a trusted reputation, and that you’re the owner of that number, I want to preserve that identity context throughout the process rather than effectively starting from zero at every step,” he says.

This approach is sometimes described as “persistent identity.” The idea is that once a signal has been validated—the phone is yours, the device is trusted, the address is correct—that confidence should stick with the player. It should not evaporate just because they navigate from one page to another or because their details happen to be re-checked by a different vendor.

Why Re-Using Identity Trust Works

Re-solving the same identity puzzle again and again isn’t just annoying for players; it creates more opportunities for something to go wrong. Each additional check is a chance for a legitimate signal to be misinterpreted. By preserving trust, operators reduce both friction and the likelihood of false rejections.

This becomes especially important in online gaming, where the rush to get players funded and playing is intense. The faster an operator can confidently onboard a customer, the faster they can contribute to the house’s bottom line.

Do Prove’s Numbers Add Up? A Closer Look

Prove points to its internal onboarding metrics as evidence that reducing friction has a measurable impact. The company claims its gaming solutions can deliver:

These figures are eye-catching, and they support the argument that a smoother process is a better one. But they also invite a fair question: who is being matched, and who is being left out?

The Transparency Gap on False Rejections

Sims is candid about what Prove does not disclose. The company does not publish a gaming-wide false-rejection rate—the percentage of legitimate players who are incorrectly challenged or turned away. It also does not publicly detail the methodology behind its benchmark figures. Without this data, it is difficult to independently verify how inclusive Prove’s systems are in practice.

That matters. An onboarding solution that rejects 10 out of every 100 legitimate players might still produce impressive speed figures for the 90 who get through. But for those ten players, the experience is a dead end. As the industry pushes toward more personalized, privacy-conscious identity models, transparency about false rejections will likely become a competitive differentiator in its own right.

Verification That Moves with Risk

Not every player needs the same level of scrutiny—and Sims argues that treating high-risk and low-risk customers identically is a mistake.

Asked how operators should balance smoother onboarding with regulatory compliance, Sims says the line isn’t fixed. “It should move with risk,” he explains. A player who presents a mix of suspicious signals—a brand-new device, a freshly issued phone number, an address that doesn’t match any public records—should expect additional questions. A returning customer on a known device, on the other hand, deserves a friction-free experience.

Stronger Isn’t Always Smarter

The gambling industry has historically defaulted to “more verification is better.” Sims pushes back against that logic. “If I have strong signals telling me you’re a legitimate player on a trusted device, why should I put you through the same experience as someone presenting multiple risk indicators? That’s not better compliance; it’s more friction.”

This philosophy turns identity verification into a dynamic, risk-based layer rather than a static gate. It also means that verification can extend beyond the initial registration. A sudden login from a new device, a change of phone number, or the appearance of a new SIM card could all trigger a step-up challenge. Conversely, a regular player logging in from their usual device on Tuesday afternoon should be able to do so silently, with the system doing its work in the background.

Sims describes the goal as “persistent identity”: maintaining confidence in the player after signup without making them continually re-prove themselves. This concept aligns with the broader industry shift toward reusable digital identities, where a single verified identity can potentially be used across multiple services without having to restart the verification process each time.

“Continuous verification shouldn’t mean asking someone to prove who they are over and over again,” Sims says. “Done right, it means maintaining confidence in their identity, so you have to interrupt them less often.”

Prove’s Gaming Partnerships: From Everi to FanDuel

Several public partnerships demonstrate how this approach is being applied in the gaming sector today.

Everi, a prominent supplier to gaming operators, works with Prove on digital onboarding, account servicing, and ongoing authentication. The integration is designed to make it easier for players to get started while giving operators ongoing visibility into identity risk.

On the licensing side, Prove’s Pre-Fill technology lets players verify their identity and populate registration forms quickly—typically using their phone number as the anchor. FanDuel was the first tier-one U.S. online sportsbook to adopt the technology, announcing the move in May 2023. BetMGM followed in April 2024, and Hard Rock Bet joined the list in September 2025.

By pre-filling known data and then validating it at the point of registration, these operators aim to strike a balance: a smoother sign-up experience, without compromising on the checks required by state gambling regulators.

Reading the Fine Print on the Numbers

Still, Sims cautions against reading too much into Prove’s headline figures. The 35% abandonment reduction should not be attributed to any single operator deployment, he says. “We haven’t publicly attributed that 35% reduction rate in abandonment specifically to one partner, so I wouldn’t present it as their individual result.”

The value is real, but it’s strategic rather than a neatly attributable metric. “These operators are investing in this approach because getting a legitimate player through registration with fewer unnecessary steps has real value,” he adds.

The Emerging Threat of AI Agents

While the industry is learning to make life easier for legitimate users, the fraud landscape is also evolving. Sims says AI is already making it easier for criminals to impersonate real people through deepfakes, voice cloning, and AI-generated identity documents. Automation also allows these attacks to be scaled in ways that were previously impractical.

But the longer-term challenge, he says, will be the rise of AI agents—software programs capable of taking actions on a user’s behalf. These agents might sign up for services, manage accounts, or initiate transactions, which fundamentally changes the identity verification question. Instead of simply asking “Is this Caleb?” the system must also ask: “Is this an agent acting for Caleb? Did Caleb authorize it? And is this agent allowed to perform this particular action?”

It sounds futuristic, but the building blocks are already coming into view. Still, Sims is careful not to overhype the immediate threat. “What I wouldn’t do is claim that we have evidence of AI agents autonomously opening gambling accounts at scale unless we can substantiate that.” For now, AI agents remain an emerging risk that operators should be preparing for—not a crisis they should be panicking about.

Moving Beyond Passwords and SMS Codes

Looking further ahead, Sims expects the days of passwords and one-time text codes to fade. These technologies became ubiquitous because they were easy to deploy, not because they were particularly secure. SMS codes, in particular, are susceptible to interception and social engineering attacks.

The direction of travel, Sims says, is toward proving possession of something genuinely bound to the user: trusted devices, cryptographic keys, and passkeys. Combined with “persistent identity intelligence,” these methods can provide higher assurance with less friction.

“The direction we are heading is toward proving possession of something that’s genuinely bound to the user—trusted devices, cryptographic keys, passkeys and other strong authentication signals—and combining those with persistent identity intelligence.”

The Financial Case for Change

For operators weighing the cost of upgrading their identity stack, Sims points to the bottom line. Account takeover and fraud drain revenue. But so does making a legitimate player complete five unnecessary verification steps before they can place a bet. Every extra step in the journey is a point where a customer might decide to go elsewhere.

As security threats grow and regulators sharpen their expectations, Sims expects these forces to push operators in the same direction: toward seamless, continuous, risk-aware identity.

The Competitive Advantage of Getting Identity Right

Industries often treat compliance as a cost center—something to be satisfied with the least possible effort. Sims believes identity verification is evolving into something else entirely.

“The operators that master this process will be more secure, be better positioned for changing regulation, and have a better product,” he says. “That’s why I think identity is going to become a competitive advantage in gaming, rather than simply a compliance requirement.”

The message is clear. In an industry where the difference between a player choosing you or a rival often comes down to minutes spent on a registration form, the operators who can tell the legitimate from the fraudulent—quickly, quietly, and without unnecessary friction—will be the ones who win.