One more free bet? A risk management take on bonus abuse
A modern player can hardly imagine an online casino or sports betting platform without bonuses. And for operators, their absence means losing a key lever for both player acquisition and retention. Bonus abuse has therefore emerged as a persistent operational and financial risk.
Recent estimates suggest that bonus abuse accounts for approximately 69% of reported iGaming fraud cases. According to the SEON report, top-tier operators spend as much as 18% of their revenue on bonuses. Tier-2 operators rely even more on them, putting around 25% into affiliate marketing and 25-45% into bonus programmes. Bonuses remain a key growth driver, but they also introduce measurable risk exposure.
In this exclusive contribution to SiGMA News, Alex Kozachenko, CEO of Turbo Stars (pictured right), and Sergii Mykhailenko, CPO of OddsMarket (pictured left), discuss the scale of bonus abuse and the tactics operators are seeing today from a risk management perspective.
Bonus abuse trends in 2026
Alex outlined how bonus abuse has evolved in recent years. “The market is crowded, so operators offer bigger bonuses to stay competitive. Of course, bigger bonuses always attract abuse. With digital tools like AI, scripts, bots, and automation, abusers have more ways to exploit the system,” Alex said.
When asked whether abuse had increased or evolved into new schemes, Alex commented, “Some people say abuse has grown with the number of operators. But I don’t see entirely new schemes. It’s mostly the same methods, but used smarter.”
According to the Turbo Stars team, the most common types of bonus abuse today are:
- Bonus arbitrage (e.g., free bets). This is one of the most common forms of bonus abuse in sports betting. Sergii gave a practical example: “The most common type of bonus arbitrage is called Matched Betting (Odds Matcher). You don’t even need to search for anything. You place any bet that gives a free bet or bonus coins, then place a lay bet on an exchange, like Betfair. For example, you might bet on “Manchester to win” with a bookmaker, while placing a “Manchester not to win” lay bet on the exchange.”
- Multi-accounting. Some players make multiple accounts on “grey” platforms with weak KYC checks. This lets them grab more sign-up bonuses, first deposit bonuses, first bet bonuses, and similar offers.
- Syndicates. In certain countries, AI helps groups of unfair bettors team up, creating syndicates or networks to carry out coordinated bonus abuse. This prompts the question of what share of new accounts is considered high-risk across all types of bonus abuse. “Every new account is usually seen as ‘good’ because it is a player who has come to an operator for entertainment, until proven otherwise,” said Alex.
“Abusive accounts, at least the smart ones, never start any kind of abuse while they are still ‘new’. Fraudulent activity typically begins after placing a few bets, when the risk management system assigns the player to the next positive group, giving them wider limits and better margins. That’s when the fun starts with abusing bonuses and other fraudulent activities. So a “new” account is unlikely to be seen as high-risk, as players are very smart these days,” Alex adds.
As for early behaviour signals that help spot bonus abuse, the Turbo Stars team gives the following:
Source: Turbo Stars for SiGMA News.
The industry reports confirm what Alex is seeing: fraudsters nowadays are pretty good at digital camouflage. According to data from SEON, the typical profile of a “smart” abuser includes:
- 92% of bonus abusers have never been involved in a data breach, meaning they use “clean” or synthetic identities rather than stolen accounts.
- 87% use free email providers, which makes it easier to create many accounts.
- 77% don’t link their email to social media, a major red flag for non-human or professional farm accounts.
- 70% use proxies or VPNs to hide their location and get around regional blocks.
Markets most exposed to bonus abuse
In this part, it was really interesting to know which sports markets abusers target most and where the risk is highest. Alex said that popular sports like soccer, basketball, and tennis are top targets. These sports have thousands of betting events every day, which helps fraudsters hide suspicious bets. It’s harder to notice individual abuse until it’s too late.
It is worth noting that smaller leagues and lower-tier events are particularly vulnerable. These competitions often lack direct, high-quality official data feeds. Bookmakers use third-party sources that may be incomplete or delayed. Fraudsters take advantage of this: they can know the outcome of a game before the odds change, giving them an edge.
The geo and value gap
Geographic risk exposure also varies significantly. According to iGaming Future Magazine, the level of risk usually depends on a country’s verification system. Markets with good national ID systems, like Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Estonia, are better at handling abuse because they can verify identities easily. In contrast, the US, UK, and Brazil face a more organised threat.
The following benchmarks were from 2023. They remained a critical baseline for understanding the problem in 2026:
- The US Market: A player could get up to $18,000 in value by systematically exploiting all available local offers. By 2026, this amount had become more appealing to fraud groups due to market growth and inflation.
- The UK Market: While bonuses were smaller (around £2,500 per abuser), organised abuse was widespread. With over 200,000 members on bonus abuse forums and an estimated one million fake identities, it had become a massive industry.
- Eastern Europe: Historically, this region has seen a lot of “no-deposit” abuse. In the report, Henk Wolff, previously Blitz Casino’s Chief Marketing Officer, said that a simple €10 registration bonus caused such a spike in fake accounts that they had to geo-block certain countries and switch to deposit-based retention.
Sergii pointed out that bonus abuse has grown into a whole industry with syndicates, professional SaaS platforms, and sharp betting academies. He explained that syndicates differ in size, from small groups to offices in central Rome: “Large operations often have separate departments for account farming, strategy testing, software development, and management”.
“SaaS platforms like Odds Monkey in the UK help users implement Matched Betting to turn bonuses into guaranteed profits. They guide bettors on matching lay odds on exchanges with bookmaker bonuses,” he proceeds.
“In the last five years, betting academies have become popular. Betting consultants in countries like Italy or Spain charge €500-€999, promising returns of €1,500-€5,000. For some, the logical next step is acquiring client accounts and sharing profits 50/50. In practice, the line between syndicates and these academies is very thin,” concludes Sergii.
Source: OddsMarket for SiGMA News.
Risk mitigation strategies
Smart abusers are good at hiding, so the next line of defence is limiting how much they can bet. Alex said that at Turbo Stars, they use dynamic bonuses and betting limits based on a player’s risk profile. New or high-risk players get tighter limits, while trusted players get more freedom.
However, operational challenges remain:
“Overestimating how much bonuses help player retention is a common pitfall. Add to that unreliable software and unqualified data providers, and you get a high-risk environment where players quickly spot opportunities for abuse.”
The future of bonuses in sports betting
While dynamic limits and careful risk management help today, the battle against bonus abuse is far from over. “Bonuses are primarily a retention tool,” Alex explained. “Operators will always offer good bonuses, and players will always try to abuse them.”
Looking ahead, tech and regulation will play a crucial role. AI will be a game-changer: it must track player behaviour in real time and adjust bonuses and offers dynamically, preventing repeated abuse of the same patterns or loopholes.
But AI alone isn’t enough. Regulators also need to step in, building systems that monitor minor leagues and lower-division competitions, like regional soccer in Southeast Asia or basketball tournaments in Eastern Europe. In these competitions, weak infrastructure makes it very easy to abuse bonuses.
To sum up the article, Alex and Sergii agreed that the goal for 2026 is simple: to make bonuses a rewarding journey for real fans, but a technical dead end for professional hunters.
Borders may define geography, but not opportunity. From 03–05 March 2026, SiGMA Africa connects leaders from across the continent to exchange insight, forge partnerships and chart Africa’s growth cycle. See you in Cape Town.
