The competitive games and platform provider A5 Labs will announce today it has selected GeoComply to assist online poker operator WPT Global. GeoComply, a market leader in geolocation, fraud, and risk services, will support the international expansion of WPT Global.
GeoComply will supply its suite of enhanced fraud detection and prevention solutions to identify fraudulent players and protect customer data. Additionally, A5 Labs will benefit from GeoComply's compliance-grade geolocation tools that prevent users joining from blocked or sanctioned regions.
WPT Global launched its online poker site in May 2022 and has since grown to provide services in more than 50 countries with a daily average user count of more than 15,000. A5 Labs has invested heavily in machine learning and data science to stop cheaters and create a site that players can trust.
The A5 white paper
In July 2022, A5 Labs released its white paper Advanced Technologies for Secure, Fair and Fun Online Poker. The paper is comprehensive, illustrating how cheating in poker affects players at every level of the game. A5 doesn't merely identify the issues.. It also provides solutions that utilize advancements in technology.
The ideal solution, as A5 sees it, is a platform that offers a more holistic approach to online gaming. One of the key aspects of this approach is the implementation of player profiling technology. Through the use of tools like NFTs and Blockchain, A5 seeks to guide operators through a revolutionary shift in how they conduct business. The paper acts as a roadmap for operators and outlines a path to a more secure future for players and the overall industry.
A5 Labs takes aim at cheaters
There have been poker cheats preying on good-natured players since the inception of the game. The advent and popularization of online poker have seen many advances in game security, but the problem remains unsolved. In recent months, poker players have seen new allegations leveled and past allegations re-asserted. A5 is working to give poker players a greater sense of security in the game they love.
John Andress, Head of Security at A5, addressed the ongoing battle to combat cheating on a wide scale. The insights he provides display the new approach A5 is taking when it comes to identifying illegitimate online players. Andress is a professional poker player but stepped away from the game a few years ago to join A5 Labs.
"We've made a big bet and hired a lot of industry experts in machine learning and data science, along with professional poker players," he said. "So, we can not just look at the signal you would have if you were running a high-risk piece of software, but also look at how you make decisions in the game. And then we compare your play to the population of pro players or the whole population of players to understand if we can see some signals through our prediction algorithms that show that what you're doing is not exactly human."
"...if they trigger anything, then they don't even get in the door."
The A5 strategy has seemingly been a success, but that success hasn't come without hardships and challenges. Andress admits that for a period of time, they were losing the "cat-and-mouse" battle with the contextual detection software. And that's where GeoComply comes into the picture.
"When players changed their location, we didn't know where they were playing from. We didn't know what software they were using," Andress said. "We were always one step behind them. GeoComply makes sure we can verify players' location and have that contextual identity, to have a complete understanding of their network behavior."
The theory behind how these tools prevent widespread cheating is fairly straightforward.
"The ability to really understand where players are, limits (cheaters). They can't be in a centralized location and drop fake players wherever they want. They have to be where they say they are, and if they trigger anything, then they don't even get in the door," Andress said.
