Why Do Poker Rooms Require Identity Verification?

What Is KYC and Why Is It Required Everywhere?

KYC is an abbreviation from “Know Your Customer” or “Know Your Client”. These are names of mandatory international legal procedures of customer identification and verification.

It obligates any financial organization or institution, including online poker and gambling operators, to request and check clients’ personal information when they open accounts. The primary information needed for verification is name, date of birth, address, and ID number/passport details.

In a broader sense, it can also can include mobile number or email confirmation, source of income, proof of financial stability or other data depending on local laws and regulations.

Even though this system is widely used, it has a few inconvenient flaws when it comes to poker players:

1. Digital nomads and freelancers often cannot prove their source of income for KYC since they lack have a proper banking history.
2. Proof of address can also pose a problem, especially for renters or, again, digital nomads.
3. KYC was originally created for U.S. citizens, meaning that it comes with specific document standards, which can differ across countries, potentially causing technical issues with verification.

It is also worth remembering that KYC usage does not protect companies from information leaks or from being hacked. Both can result in customers’ personal information falling into the hands of frauds, scammers and other ill-intended predators.

Types of Verification in the Poker Industry

Poker rooms and payment services can verify your identity using several different methods: 

• Identification Document Verification – used to check personal information and ID legitimacy. Most countries require you to make a scan or photo of your passport, driver’s license, government ID card or another legal document.
• Liveness Detection Verification – confirms that you are a real person and not a bot/AI. Usually requires taking a selfie with an ID in hand and current date, video of you moving according to instructions, etc.
• Biometric Verification – confirms that the person trying to log into your account is you. Usually requires biometrical recognition, including face control scanning, fingerprint scanning, voice identification, etc.
• Two-Factor or Multi-Factor Authentication – prevents authorization in your accounts by anyone except you. It uses apps known as authenticators to send time-limited codes and confirm account activity.
• Trusted Identity Network – verifies your identity through another provider. The most used types are authorization via Google Account, Apple Account, and Facebook.
• Knowledge-based Authentication (KBA) – confirms you are the one making certain account actions, thus preventing financial scams. An automatized systems checks by asking questions based on your account activity. For example, a room’s employee asks: “Who was the recipient of your latest transaction?” to confirm that you know about it. 

Today, most poker rooms require ID, email and/or mobile verification before allowing you to make any financial transaction. Some of them don’t even allow players to complete their registration before verifying their phone number and/or email.

For example, crypto poker room CoinPoker requires all KYC-demanded information when you register an account as well as an email verification after. Another example is GGPoker, which uses all the above types of verification except biometric. It even added the Trusted Identity Network in 2024 with their new GGPass.

Why Is Verification (Almost) Obligatory in the Poker Industry?

Any type of digital verification needs to be done for three main reasons:

1. International and local laws demand verification – poker operator are obliged to obey laws regarding protection of personal information, prevention of fraudulent behavior, and money laundering.
2. Verification makes legal processes between players and rooms easier – if both sides can verify their identities and transaction history, it is much easier to resolve potential disputes at later times.
3. Verification allows identification of fraud – it helps to detect multiple accounts and players who try to return to rooms where they have been banned. 

When poker operators go through licensing, regulators require them to identify and verify customers for the sake of safety, legal protection, and prevention of misconduct. It is necessary since the poker industry has a painfully long history of scandals involving cases of abusing internal systems and stealing customers’ funs by rooms’ teams, individual employees or even other players.

Take the story of UltimateBet and Absolute Poker as an example. If players could not verify their identity and confirm their allegations (and, in this case, losses), they would never have gotten any funds back from these rooms.

Of course, there are a lot of poker rooms working in a “gray area” — without licenses and compliance with a particular country’s laws. Yes, even these rooms prefer to verify their customers to some degree to protect their business.

An abundance of poker payment payment working hand-in-hand with rooms do the same. They do not want to unnecessary problems with account funds, so they require verification to protect you and themselves.