TransUnion, a US-based consumer credit reporting agency, published a fraud analysis report, according to which the global digital fraud rate dropped by 22.6% in the first quarter of 2022 in comparison to the prior-year quarter.
However, despite the fact that fraud decreased in most sectors, the gambling industry registered a 50.1% growth in fraud rate and had the second-highest level of increase after the insurance sector.
A Study Held in the Q1 2022
A study conducted by TransUnion on 10,391 people in certain countries and regions throughout the world from February 7 to February 23, 2022, showed that 36% of consumers had been subject to a digital fraud in the first quarter of 2022 in comparison to 38% of consumers during the previous quarter.
The total rate of fraud in the US dropped by 23.1% from Q1 2021 to Q1 2022 throughout all industries.
The most common frauds that victimize consumers were phishing swindles representing 31%, money/gift card scams with 28%, and third-party seller scams on legitimate online retail sites with 23%.
Shai Cohen, TransUnion’s senior vice president of global fraud solutions, commented that the criminals might be more focused now on new industries such as the gambling sector. He stated that the experienced fraudsters had already tested which industries had more tight fraud prevention measures introduced and because of that, they were focusing on new sectors, which were more vulnerable.
Gambling Industry as a New Target of Fraudsters
On the other hand, Sean Donnelly, who is TransUnion’s senior vice president of go-to-market global fraud solutions, commented that many organizations and entities were focused now to attract more good customers and transactions, respectively, at a time when fraud rates had stabilized and scammers were looking for new vulnerable sectors. According to Donnelly, companies, and organizations had the opportunity to improve considerably the experience of customers while protecting them from fraudsters through strict fraud prevention measures.
Declan Raines, head of TransUnion’s US Gaming, stated that the gambling industry should create common norms for responsible gaming practices in order to protect all players. Many US states started to adopt mobile wagering legislation and, according to Raines, the responsible gaming topic should be one of the leading topics on the legislators’ agenda. He added that the gambling legislation in some American states, which consider igaming and mobile sports betting, would be materially affected by the growing demand for more responsible gaming practices and protocols.