Crypto Casino
Torrent Gear
Why licensed casinos use transaction auditing
Transactions are the "circulatory system" of the gambling business. For a licensed operator, transaction auditing is not an option, but a mandatory practice that simultaneously closes legal requirements, reduces losses from fraud, speeds up payments to honest players and maintains the trust of payment partners and the regulator.
Why Audit Transactions
1) Compliance with the law and license conditions
AML/CFT + KYC/KYT: identification of suspicious input/output patterns, structuring, transit accounts, sanctions risks.
Responsibility to the regulator: storage of logs, reproducibility of decisions, reports on suspicious transactions (SAR/STR), threshold reports, statistics of limits and locks.
2) Fighting fraud
Chargeback and card fraud: early detection of "deposit → minimum game → cash-out," the use of stolen cards, returns after bonuses.
Multi-account and bonus abuse: communication by devices, IP, means of payment, behavioral biometrics; suppression of "carousels" and cashing bonuses.
Affiliate schemes: anti-referral fraud, self-drives, return of commissions through fake deposits.
3) Financial accuracy and trust of payment partners
Reconciliation: correspondence between PSP/acquiring logs, internal accounting, PAM wallet and gaming events.
Absence of "black holes": identification of stuck, duplicated, frozen operations; correct reversals and refands.
Reducing the cost of acquiring: reliable statistics of chargeback rate and fraud scoring increase the confidence of banks and reduce holds.
4) Player Protection and Responsible Gaming
RG behavioural triggers: deposit speed, night marathons, withdrawal reversals, "chasing loss."
Affordability: matching amounts to a player's profile and set limits; soft and hard interventions.
5) Business Risk Management
Operational risks: integration errors, broken webhooks, PSP delays.
Jurisdictional risks: geo-limits of payments, MCC 7995, local limits and deadlines.
What exactly is included in the transaction audit
1. End-to-end tracing: unique key "Payment transaction ↔ Account ↔ Game round/session ↔ Payout."
2. Bi-directional reconciliation: by day/period, by PSP and by methods (cards, bank, wallets, crypto).
3. Rules and models: static thresholds + ML scoring, velocity controls, device/IP signals, behavioral biometrics.
4. KYT (Know Your Transaction) - contextual verification of each transaction taking into account the client's history, geo and source of funds.
5. Incident management: case investigations, action log, solution reproducibility (audit trail).
6. Reporting: regulatory uploads, PSP reports, board and compliance dashboards.
How it relates to gameplay
Play-through: confirmation that the conclusion comes after the real game, and not as a "cashing" deposit/bonus.
Round ID/Hand ID: each output is tied to a game history aggregate; the sequence of events can be replayed.
RTP-drift control (on large samples) is not about "tweaking," but about the absence of anomalies in aggregated payments.
Data Architecture (Reference)
Raw layer (raw): PSP webhooks, box office logs, game events, KYC/KYT, sanctions results.
Operational layer (ODS): normalization of methods, statuses (authorized, captured, refunded, payout), reasons for failures.
Ledger/PAM: ACID register of balances with unchanging transaction log.
DWH/Analytics: showcases for anti-fraud, AML, RG, reporting.
Case-management: a system of cases with SLAs, checklists and SAR/STR templates.
Integrity control: daily reconciliation of amounts by source, alerts for discrepancies, "warm" and "hot" books.
Roles and responsibilities
MLRO/Compliance: final decisions on SAR/STR, interaction with the regulator.
Risk/Fraud: Rules, Models, Investigations, Chargeback Management.
Payments/Finance: reconciliation, PSP reporting/banks, cash management.
Data/Engineering: pipelines, data quality, fault tolerance.
Support/VIP: communication with players, collection of documents (SoF/SoW), enforcement of restrictions.
Internal Audit: independent checks of processes and samples.
KPIs and Alerts
Chargeback rate / Dispute win rate.
Fraud/False Positive rate, average investigation time.
RTP/Net gaming revenue vs cash flow discrepancy.
Conversion to SAR/STR and submission deadlines.
Aging unclosed payout/refund, "suspended" statuses.
Compliance SLA by KYC/EDD/SoF, share of abnormal velocity cases.
Uptime of payment integrations and time to resolve incidents.
Typical scenarios that an audit identifies
"Deposit → 1-2 bets → withdrawal cancellation/retry" (laundering/bonus abuse).
A series of small deposits just below KYC thresholds (structuring).
Conclusions on payment funds of third parties.
Mismatch of country BIN card and geo player without justification.
Duplicate devices/browsers on different accounts.
An unusual proportion of refands per PSP or in one GEO.
Gap between PAM balances and real cash flows (integration errors).
Implementation checklist for operator
Data and accounting
Single Round/Txn ID on all systems.
Immutable wallet ledger, version of records.
Automatic EOD reconciliations by PSP/method/currency.
Antifraud/AML/KYT
Velocity rules, device/IP mapping, geo/BIN control.
End-to-end KYC communication ↔ payment ↔ game ↔ output.
SAR/STR templates, decision register with justification.
Processes and people
RACI on cases, "four-eyed" on locks and large payments.
Training on SoF/SoW document support and correct communication.
Regular internal audit and test "mock incidents."
Technology and reliability
Multi-PSP routing, retray webhooks, delay alerts.
Storage of logs on regulatory deadlines, control of access and actions (IAM).
KPI dashboards for compliance, risk and finance.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
A weak bundle of "game ↔ payment" → to introduce a single key and mandatory recording of Round ID in history.
You → prohibit manual balance adjustments only through corrective operations with a signature and a journal.
Focusing only on rules → add models and behavioral analytics, reduce false positives.
Lack of EDD/SoF for VIP → formalize document triggers and checklists.
One PSP "for everything" → backup channels, a feiler test and different logic of limits.
There is no transparent communication → letter templates: reasons for requesting documents, deadlines, player rights, escalation channel (ADR).
What the player gets
Predictable and fast payouts (fewer manual checks with a clean profile).
Protection against fraudsters (stolen cards, conclusions "in someone else's name").
Transparency: understandable statuses, reasons for refusals, history of operations and games, complaint/ADR channels.
FAQ (short)
Is auditing transactions about "strangling payments"?
No, it isn't. The goal is to distinguish between an honest player and risk patterns, accelerating the first and blocking the second.
Why KYT if there is KYC?
KYC confirms the identity, KYT verifies each transaction in the context of behavior and risks.
Can you do without ML models?
Theoretically, yes, but the cost of errors/manual work will be higher; a rule + ML hybrid gives a better balance.
Transaction auditing is the foundation of a licensed operator. It ensures AML/KYC/KYT compliance, reduces fraud and chargebacks, maintains cash flow accuracy, accelerates payments to bona fide players, and strengthens relationships with banks and the regulator. Proper data architecture, accounting discipline and mature processes make the business sustainable - and this is the main argument in favor of auditing not only for show, but as an ongoing practice.