Preventing multi-accounting in gaming and gambling

Multi-accounting, a practice where individuals create multiple accounts on online services, poses significant challenges for online poker, gambling, and gaming platforms due to the financial and competitive advantages it can provide. Despite improvements in detecting such activities, multi-accounting remains prevalent, particularly in high-stakes environments like poker, where players exploit multiple accounts to increase their chances of winning or to engage in unfair practices like 'gnoming.' In the broader gambling and gaming industries, multi-accounting can lead to issues such as chip dumping, affiliate fraud, promo abuse, and smurfing, which can disrupt fair play and damage community trust. To combat multi-accounting, platforms employ strategies such as deduplicating sign-up information and using advanced technologies like browser fingerprinting to track and analyze device characteristics. This helps identify suspicious activities, such as the creation of multiple accounts from the same device, which can indicate fraudulent behavior. Companies like Fingerprint Pro offer APIs to enhance the detection and prevention of multi-accounting, aiming to maintain equitable and enjoyable environments for all users.