Why Does an Online Casino Ask for Your ID

You don’t need to verify your identity when starting to play at online casinos. None of the existing gambling sites require this procedure to be done right away after you create an account. However, ID verification may become mandatory for some players in some cases, and in this article, we are going to describe the cases when it may happen.

Age Verification

Gambling is not for everyone, meaning you have to be of a certain age to start playing online casino games. Moreover, this age requirement may vary depending on a particular country. In some regions, you need to turn 18 to be eligible for gambling. In others, the entrance age level is even higher as you need to be 21+ to start playing online casino games.

Therefore, identity verification is the only way for an online casino to check your age and it is very popular and important in the gambling industry. Gambling sites are obliged to monitor the situation closely with the age of their clients and prevent illegal activities in this niche. With this in mind, you may be asked to complete the customer KYC process before you will be able to withdraw funds.

The procedure looks pretty simple, but you will have to provide the gambling site with some copies of your personal documents, including your ID card and some bills that confirm your residence. If there is a case of an underage gambling, your money will be frozen and you will be able to withdraw your winnings once you are at the legal age of 18+ or 21+ depending on your particular location and legislation there.

As for the list of the documents, apart from the ID card, you can provide your driving license, which is of equal validity. The whole verification process may take a couple of hours to a couple of days. To learn more about it, you should ask this question to the support team of a particular online gambling site.

Country of Residence Verification

You may probably know that gambling, including online casino games, is prohibited in some regions. Therefore, to prevent gamblers from restricted regions from playing, any online casino reserves the right to verify your identity. This is the second most common scenario when you will be asked to complete the verification process in order to withdraw your winnings or continue playing casino games on a particular gambling site.

Your personal data that you have provided during the registration procedure should be similar to that in the documents you provide. Otherwise, your account may be blocked and winnings frozen.

Multi-Account Rule Breach

It is not a secret that online casinos do not allow their clients to create several accounts. This is due to the fact that if a gambling site offers bonuses, especially no deposit promotions, one can use them only once. And if a player creates multiple accounts, he or she can benefit many times from a single bonus campaign. Therefore, if a gambling site doubts that you have a single player account per person, you may be required to complete a verification procedure to confirm that you do not breach this rule.

Payment Method Verification

Some banking options that you use may also require a verification procedure. This is relevant when you use such payment methods as credit and debit cards, as well as bank wire and some others. Before depositing using a credit card, for instance, you will be asked to verify it on most online gambling companies.

Money Laundering

Offline casinos were known in the past as one of the ways to launder dirty money. Online casino businesses are also used for the same purposes. However, with the development of modern technologies and some changes in legislation and establishment of gambling commissions, money laundering has become almost impossible when it comes to online casinos. Most modern gambling sites use the KYC tool to prevent such crimes.

In addition to standard KYC documents like ID cards or proof of residence, an online casino may request some data related to your bank activities. You will also be required to provide the gambling site with the source of your income.

Author: Thomas Combs