How multi-accounting became a gateway for fraud in iGaming by Legitimuz

For years, creating more than one account at a betting site was treated as a clever move without major consequences, almost a habit of those who wanted to take advantage of a welcome bonus more than once. This behavior, now called multi-accounting, has ceased to be a gray area and has come to be treated by the market as one of the main vectors of fraud in Brazilian iGaming.

What is multi-accounting?

Multiple accounts is the practice of maintaining more than one active account on the same platform, under the same person's name or different identities controlled by them, to gain an advantage that the betting site would not allow with a single registration.

Motivations vary. Some people use multiple accounts simply to repeat sign-up bonuses. Others use them to circumvent betting limits imposed after a history of wins.

And there are more sophisticated schemes, such as cross-betting, in which different accounts bet on opposite outcomes of the same event to guarantee profit regardless of the result, and collusion between players to manipulate team games.

The parallel market for verified accounts.

What turned multiple accounts into a structural problem was the emergence of a parallel market for already validated accounts. In this scheme, a person (called a "drop" or "mule") is paid to register an account in their own name, provide documents, and undergo identity verification, including facial recognition.

Once validated, the account is resold for a much higher price to bettors who have already been banned or had their limits reduced by other platforms, and who are looking for a new identity to continue operating without restriction.

This market reverses the logic of KYC (Know Your Customer). Identity verification is correctly fulfilled at the time of registration by the person who is actually the owner of the documents. The problem arises later, when control of the account passes to another person, without the platform having any way of knowing.

The cost for the platforms

Using multiple accounts distorts the odds offered by the bookmaker because coordinated bets from different accounts create the illusion of organic market behavior where in reality there is a single central strategy.

It also artificially inflates the cost of customer acquisition, since welcome bonuses designed to attract a new bettor end up being paid repeatedly to the same person or the same organized group.

Brazilian regulations already provide a response for proven cases. Ordinance SPA/MF No. 1.231/2024, in its article 55, establishes that, if an account is closed due to proven fraud, the operator may retain the amount deposited by the bettor up to the limit of the damages caused, which requires sufficient traceability to support this decision.

What regulation already requires of platforms

Ministry of Finance Ordinance SPA/MF No. 722/2024 details specific technical requirements for dealing with this type of fraud: betting systems must detect the use of VPNs, proxies, remote access software, emulators, and any attempt to mask the location or identity of the device, blocking the operation before the bet is completed.

According to fraud prevention experts in the sector, the challenge is not identifying isolated instances of multi-account activity, but rather cross-referencing signals that appear together: the same device, the same network, and correlated betting behavior between accounts that should be independent. When these signals converge, the suspicion of multi-account activity goes from an indication to a case that needs to be formally investigated by the platform.