What is Geolocation in a mobile casino?

Categories: News | Published by: Dean

18/01/2021

Casinos often have restrictions on who can use their site. This is particularly the case in the US where not every state can legally gamble.

In an attempt to ensure that rules aren’t broken, geolocation is used to a high degree of success, but it isn’t without its problems.

Recent years have seen important changes in the US gambling industry. Previously, it was the federal government that made decisions on the legalization of gambling. After a US Supreme Court ruling. It’s now possible for individual states to decide whether or not to legalize gambling. This has led to many states deciding to do just that but there are still many that haven’t taken that step.

When a site is given a license to operate online gambling in a site such as New Jersey or Pennsylvania, there are restrictions included. One is that to be able to play at the site, they must be located within that state before they can play. The way they prove this is by geolocation. Mobile casino geolocation is done by the GPS receiver built into a mobile phone, but it can also be done using WiFi and phone mast towers to triangulate players’ locations. Like any technology, this can work seamlessly, or cause players a headache. Troubleshooting guides like those found on the Mobile US casino site are proving popular for players with these issues.

Those living in a state that has yet to legalize gambling have tried to find a way around the situation. This is where a VPN can comes into play. It can hide your true location. Suddenly it can be made to appear that actually you live in a state that has legalized gambling. But this doesn’t work with online casinos who block users trying to access their site by a VPN according to the Mobile US casino site.

Casinos don’t want to allow this situation to occur. They have waited years to be able to legally open an online casino/sportsbook, they don’t want to lose them. The problem with out of state players can lead to fines being levied as was the case with the Hard Rock Casino site in New Jersey. A $29 bet placed by an account member resident in Nevada, led to the casino being fined $25,000.

Those illegally creating accounts may not be doing so just to play casino games. Others do so with fraud on their mind. They open several accounts with the aim of getting their hands on one welcome bonus after another. Bonus abuse is a problem in online gambling, so again this is an area that geolocation can point towards those who are showing signs of this behavior that can cost online casinos a great deal of money.

With worries about fraud and out of state accounts, online casinos can use geolocation technology to monitor and filter the IP addresses of their customers. If these methods worked each and every time, there’d be big smiles on the owners of online casinos.

There are sites that are full of information about mobile casino geolocation, so if wanting to know more about this, paying them a visit is a great idea.

GeoComply are one company that is helping in this area. They can check mobile devices, web browsers, and Smart TVs. It’s a tough job with millions of transactions to process.

However, the problem is that there are still many customers who are still able to avoid detection. Those sites that allow people to constantly change their IP address in seconds continue to cause online casino problems. It’s an ongoing battle but one that the online casinos need to win.