Risque Megaways

What is Risque Megaways?

While Nevada is considered the top gaming state in the US, its regulatory framework related to technology has been seen as slow-moving and cluttered in comparison to other up-and-coming jurisdictions around the US. Ever since NGCB Chair Mike Dreitzer took over last June, modernisation has been a top priority, and these latest revisions are an extension of that.

“We finally got to a point where we said, you know what, let’s drop all our other efforts right now and get these over the finish line and get them up for comment so that we can make sure that we’re current with things,” Jeremy Eberwein, chief of the board’s Technology Division, told iGB.

The bulk of the work revolved around compiling and codifying the technical information in one place, Eberwein said. There were some existing Technical Standards, but other requirements lived in the state’s Minimum Internal Control Standards, which are a broad mix of technical and procedural requirements.

What is Risque Megaways?

“If a customer finds black market sites that have all their preferred betting and gaming options, convenience dictates they will transfer a broad range of their expenditure there. Consumer recycling means that banning or restricting key products has a broader distortive impact on the entire market,” the report noted.

Notably for highly engaging verticals light online slots, if players are receiving a smaller-than-expected RTP (return to player), or bonuses have been restricted, they could again transition to an illegal offering where there are no such restrictions.

As has been flagged in previous reports, Regulus highlighted that the top 1% of active customers accounts for almost 50% of black market revenue across Europe. This follows a similar trend across licensed gambling as the report highlights “online gambling is a consumer discretionary expenditure item. This means a large proportion of expenditure is concentrated into a relatively small number of players.”

About Risque Megaways

Its findings contained an all-too-familiar combination of ineffective systems, delayed interventions and inadequate source-of-funds controls. One customer placed approximately 4,800 bets in one day and 7,000 the next without being flagged. Another, whose payslips showed monthly earnings of about £2,000, deposited and lost £9,000 in four days.

“What is striking here is the level of activity that apparently failed to trigger effective intervention,” Williams says. “These were obvious indicators requiring further scrutiny, and it is difficult to understand why they did not result in more effective intervention.”

He adds that the recurring weakness is often not an absence of policies but a failure to ensure “technology, algorithms and operational processes actually work in practice”. Some of the QuinnBet issues followed a platform migration, underlining the need to retest controls whenever systems change.