Gambling

Cracking Down on Cheaters: How NZ Online Casinos Are Fighting Back

August 20, 2025

Published in cooperation between betkiwi.co.nz and the King City Rustler

One of the biggest challenges to online casinos across the world, including New Zealand, is cheating. While at land-based casinos, it’s easier for trained dealers and croupiers to spot suspicious players, there’s an ever-growing range of ways players are able to cheat online. Of course, it’s important for online casinos to prevent this, and there are numerous methods they employ to do so. Let’s have a closer look now.

Ensuring Identity Verification

Before making a deposit at an online casino, players are asked to verify their identity through a process called Know Your Customer¹. Usually, this involves uploading documents to prove one’s identity, like a passport or driving license, an address and/or a utility bill. These allow the online casino to verify that a player is who they say they are and is legally allowed to be on its site.

Identity verification is also useful when it comes to preventing cheating. One of the most common forms of cheating is called bonus abuse. Often, this involves players creating multiple accounts to claim the same bonus more than once. Identity verification can be helpful in preventing this by stopping players from using the same information to sign up to more than one account.

It also helps to protect against a further form of cheating, where players create bot accounts. These don’t use the player’s real identity or details; rather, they use generated information. These signups can be prevented through identity verification as the bot and player won’t possess a form of ID.

Account Protection: Biometrics and More

Identity verification is just one of the ways that online casinos vet players and prevent cheating. Some have also introduced a further layer of security through biometric verification. This means that players have to complete an extra step, like fingerprint or facial ID, to access their account. The extra layer of protection can prevent a form of cheating where players access and use someone else’s account.

Many online casinos use multi-factor authentication to further protect account access. This requires users to match additional information before accessing an account. A common example is entering a code sent to the user’s phone number. Multi-factor authentication ensures that only the account owner can access and play through the account.

Detecting Bot Accounts

As we mentioned earlier, some players use bots to sign up for accounts, but did you know they can also play for them? There are various ways that bots sway the odds in their favor when gambling. First, they’re able to learn from their environment by looking at a player’s patterns, styles and history. Once it has collected this data, the bot can use machine learning to create algorithms which determine the best moves². This gives it an advantage over the other players and even the casino.

Bots pose a significant threat to the online casino industry, especially as the technology behind them, AI, becomes more accessible and smarter. While AI is part of the threat, it’s also used as the solution. Once again, AI’s ability to efficiently process data comes into use, as it’s being employed to monitor player accounts. AI is able to detect patterns associated with bot accounts, such as playing around the clock or making decisions faster than humanly possible.

Once AI flags an account displaying the patterns associated with cheating, providers can take action. They may suspend the account and block the IP address from which it came. As well as this, they can keep the details provided in signup to prevent them from being used to create another account.

Stopping Scammers

We’ve heard a lot about how some players cheat using technology, but there’s also a significant human factor in cheating at online casinos. Just like at land-based casinos, there are scammers at online providers. While in some cases it may be harder to cheat without a human croupier or dealer, some notable scams still exist.

Online casinos often rely on random number generators (RNGs) to determine things like the roll of dice or dealing of cards. Despite the name, some players have found that RNGs aren’t always random. When online casinos were relatively new, one poker player discovered that the decks that appear aren’t entirely random. Instead, they’re drawn from a pool of 200,000 possible combinations. This allowed the player to predict what card may come next and change their play as a result³.

There are also forms of cheating that are more common in the online casino world, like collusion. This involves players working together to succeed at a game and is seen in card games like poker. While it is found at land-based casinos, it’s much easier to detect when dealers can see a group of players. In the online world, it can be much more challenging to monitor.

AI also has a role in stopping scamming by analysing player patterns. It can flag suspicious patterns in play, like uninterrupted winning streaks. In collusion, players may display unusual behaviors, like quickly folding a good hand in poker when they know their partner has a better one. AI can monitor and highlight these behaviors, allowing providers to take the next steps in preventing them.

Preventing Card Counting

Card counting is a common problem at land-based casinos. It involves players keeping track of which cards in a deck have already come up, so they can predict which ones might be dealt next. Land-based casinos have implemented a range of tools to try to prevent card counting, such as training dealers on what to look out for and monitoring players through hundreds of discrete cameras.

There are still cases that slip through the cracks, though. In 2012, 17 people were arrested in Macau for cheating three casinos out of HK$90 million⁴. When playing baccarat, they were using miniature cameras to take pictures of the cards. They used these images to count cards and predict which would appear next. Facial recognition software, 360-degree cameras and a dedicated security team were used to catch the scammers.

At online casinos, card counting is significantly harder as the cards are determined by RNGs. However, some still use the method in live games where they interact with a dealer in real time. It’s particularly common in live blackjack.

Online casinos were quick to identify and tackle this problem. Rather than relying on one random number generator, they now use multiple to ensure the methods are completely unpredictable. In card games, they use multiple deck shufflers so there are more possible combinations.

What Are the Consequences of Cheating at Online Casinos?

Cheating at an online casino can result in hefty consequences. In the eyes of the law, it’s viewed in the same way as cheating at land-based casinos. If a player is found guilty in New Zealand, he can face a maximum prison sentence of up to a year and a fine not exceeding NZD$20,000⁵. These punishments are usually reserved for players with multiple offences or high-level fraud.

There are other common consequences for cheating at online casinos. For example, the provider may suspend or block the player’s account from its site. Providers can even ban players for life and keep a register of their details to prevent them from creating other accounts in the future. This is often referred to as “blacklisting.”

Players found guilty of cheating also won’t get to keep their winnings. They are voided by the casino with any winnings automatically returned to them. On top of this, players may even have to pay a fine.

So How Do Online Casinos Prevent Cheating?

Online casinos have a range of stringent methods in place to prevent cheating. Using AI, they’re able to detect unusual patterns of behaviour or suspicious accounts. Having strict identity and account verifications in place prevents bonus or account takeovers.

While forms of cheating like scams and card counting are less common online, casinos still have to apply measures against them. Many online casinos implement multiple card shufflers and random number generators.

Additionally, the severe potential consequences of cheating help to deter players.