"Household names that you and I are familiar with will not have
fakes on them. But when you're looking at emerging markets, where new websites are appearing on a regular basis because the market hasn't matured, that's where people need to be more careful." More concerning is the sophistication with which counterfeit content
can be deployed. Elliott says Gamecheck has identified cases in which operators have alternated between legitimate and counterfeit versions rather than simply populating a casino with fake content. "We've even managed to find companies that have switched between
genuine and fake depending on which players are playing and the time of day," he explains. Te economic incentive is straightforward: counterfeit games allow an operator to avoid, or significantly reduce, the licensing fees payable to the legitimate game supplier. Te consequences, however, extend much further. "Te answer to
who's losing out is everyone," says Elliott. For players, a counterfeit version of a familiar title may have been altered so that its mathematical model no longer resembles the authentic game. "Te game has probably been reformatted or reconfigured in such a way that it won't pay winnings as much as the genuine game. Te RTP will have been affected so that wins aren't triggered as often." Game developers lose licensing revenue and control over their intel-
lectual property, while legitimate operators risk suffering from declining trust in online casino content more broadly. "If players start experiencing fake games, they're going to lose trust in the industry. Even operators lose out because people won't want to play as much if they're not sure whether a game is genuine."
FROM GAME TESTING TO GAME AUTHENTICITY Elliott sees today's authentication challenge as an evolution of one the online gambling sector confronted at its inception. When online casino first emerged, players questioned whether they could safely deposit money with websites operating from unfamiliar jurisdictions and whether games behaved in accordance with their advertised mathe- matics.
Te industry's response was independent testing. "We worked with
game testing labs and independent third parties that could say these games had been tested and were running according to the RTP they were supposed to." Companies including GLI, iTech Labs and eCOGRA helped establish confidence that games performed as claimed. Te new challenge, Elliott argues, goes one stage further. "Previously it was, 'Does the game perform according to the way it's supposed to?' Now it's, 'Is this actually the genuine game?'" He describes
178
Gamecheck's role as analogous to identifying the security features on a banknote. "You know the manufacturer has built its reputation over years. Game authenticity is one of a bag of problems that needs to be resolved and Gamecheck provides a solution so that when you're playing your game, you know it's the real thing."
AI ACCELERATES BOTH SIDES Artificial intelligence has the potential to intensify the issue. Elliott believes AI tools are dramatically reducing the resources required to recreate existing games, lowering the barrier for those seeking to produce counterfeit content. "AI can be used to copy anything now. It can be used to design
games, reverse engineer games and build them again in a way that previously would have taken months of developer and designer time." Tat makes counterfeiting faster and potentially more sophisticated.
At the same time, Elliott argues that awareness and detection capabilities are improving. Gamecheck's expanding database aggregates information on counterfeit sites across multiple providers, while players themselves are increasingly sharing warnings. "Te player community loves knowing where fakes are. Tey love
telling their friends and posting about it. Trough our social tools, we give them the information and they do the rest of the work for us. People talk." Gamecheck is also working with affiliates, influencers and regulators. Elliott highlights its partnership with Casino Guru, which incorporates Gamecheck results into the information it presents to players. For Elliott, affiliates have an important role to play because their recom- mendations can directly influence where consumers choose to de- posit. Regulatory interest is increasing too. "Initially regulators probably didn't think that we had much of a role to play within their confines. As we've become more recognised, regulators have become more open- minded about talking to us." Tat relationship can work in both directions. A regulator may see
what appears to be a legitimate supplier's game on an unlicensed website and assume the provider is knowingly servicing that market. Gamecheck can help determine whether the content is genuine at all, potentially distinguishing supplier activity from unauthorised copying.
BUILDING A VISIBLE SIGN OF TRUST Te next stage in the company's development is the Gamecheck Seal. Designed to sit directly on an operator's website, the Seal provides a
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239 |
Page 240 |
Page 241 |
Page 242 |
Page 243 |
Page 244 |
Page 245 |
Page 246 |
Page 247 |
Page 248 |
Page 249 |
Page 250 |
Page 251 |
Page 252 |
Page 253 |
Page 254 |
Page 255 |
Page 256 |
Page 257 |
Page 258 |
Page 259 |
Page 260 |
Page 261 |
Page 262 |
Page 263 |
Page 264 |
Page 265 |
Page 266 |
Page 267 |
Page 268 |
Page 269 |
Page 270 |
Page 271 |
Page 272 |
Page 273 |
Page 274 |
Page 275 |
Page 276 |
Page 277 |
Page 278 |
Page 279 |
Page 280 |
Page 281 |
Page 282 |
Page 283 |
Page 284 |
Page 285 |
Page 286
