The Evolution of Player Onboarding in Online Casinos

The online casino industry has been experimenting and innovating in all areas of user experience – gameplay, incentives, player retention, and, clearly, onboarding. The goal has always been clear – create the least amount of friction between visiting the site and jumping into action. As a result, no verification casino Australia sites have gained significant traction within the gambling community, since one can sign up, fund the account, and start to gamble within minutes. But this isn’t always possible, and regulatory constraints often prevent this form of onboarding.

Here we’ll discuss in detail how casino onboarding works now and how and why it changed over the years.

Early Registration Models

In the early stages of iGaming, sign-up was pretty standard; you’d just enter your email and a password, and then pick a user name. There were no SMS verification codes or other checks to determine that you are making an account for the first time. So, players used this thing to abuse bonus offers and play on a budget.

Promotions became even better or more accessible over time. Now it’s easy to find multiple 5 dollar deposit casinos, whereas before, $20 or $50 deposits were the norm for the sign-up offer. However, this form of registration had its flaws and had to change. Users could not withdraw any cash without verification, and that process could take time. Moreover, regulations started to change, and in many countries it became mandatory for casinos to ensure users who are younger than 18 years aren’t participating.

Digital Transformation

As mentioned, the early registration process was lengthy and clunky. While you still needed to submit your ID and proof of address, there weren’t any features in your user menu that allowed you to do this. You had to send it in an email, and then you had to wait for someone to confirm they received your files. There wasn’t even a live chat feature, so getting in touch with casino staff could take days.

This changed gradually. More questions were added to the sign-up form, e.g., Address, Phone number, Zip code, etc. This made registration a bit slower, but it helped speed up verification. Also, users could upload docs through the site directly, and/or verify the account through live chat.

Identity Verification

When verification became mandatory, it turned into the biggest problem for online casinos. Asking for personal documents up front isn’t something players like. The process is tedious on its own, and no one can tell if someone is taking advantage of the legal situation just so they can gather sensitive data and sell it.

So, the onboarding process was changed again to deal with this issue, and there are a few solutions that are present to this day:

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• Immediate KYC check after sign up, but the docs are reviewed within a few hours or a day
• Verification through first deposit. Signing up and adding funds via payment methods like Trustly allowed casinos to instantly verify the player
• No verification, unless someone tries to deposit more than $20 and withdraw more than $50
• Completely anonymous play on crypto-only casinos. These are usually sites that aren’t regulated, though

The main idea behind these models is to stay compliant while still having a smooth player onboarding. However, sites that weren’t regulated by stricter commissions definitely had the edge.

User Experience Design

Another important factor that made onboarding easier is mobile design. To be specific, adding live video chat to the site made things a lot easier. Users could take a photo of an ID and a utility bill, a staff member could call them and see their face, and immediately confirm their identity. The account is then unlocked as there is no longer any doubt whether the player is underage or not. Additionally, the interface was simplified to accommodate the mobile playerbase, and a lot of clutter was cleared from the user menu. Even signing up became a lot faster as users could auto-fill the fields using saved data.

Payment Integration

Mobile-first design also streamlined deposits and withdrawals. Players could top up their accounts via a mobile wallet and keep their payment information private. Cashouts still took a longer time to process, especially at casinos that do KYC verification upon first withdrawal, and that approach the payout requests manually.

Luckily, many brands have integrated tools that allow them to verify the player activity or spending history automatically, which means that withdrawals were processed within hours. This was a huge step-up, as for a long time the industry standard was 3-5 business days.

Regional Adaptation

Because of the local regulations and operational costs, many casino businesses had to adapt to the ever-changing legal landscape. Players started to gravitate towards offshore brands, so local authorities created a framework for regulating and taxing those casinos. Also, many EU companies decided to relocate their HQs to countries like Malta or Gibraltar, and then service the same market but as a foreign gambling company.

These things also affected the onboarding. Since each commission has its own rules, player sign-up processes were altered depending on their location. Those who are in the UK, for example, had to verify their accounts immediately after signing up. Those who live in countries with more lenient laws could postpone it until cashing out.

Future Direction

One thing is certain: the iGaming industry has grown significantly. They are heavily ingrained in sports; they have their own tech conferences and award shows. Here, they discuss user safety, new releases, and new onboarding technologies. One way to streamline this process is to create something similar to autofill for KYC verification. This would be especially useful for players who frequently make new accounts to take advantage of sign-up offers.

Also, a lot of casinos are sister sites, so it would make sense that when one of them verifies the user, they can have an automatically verified account on the sister site. What’s more, AI tools are now more sophisticated, so the verification process can be faster by leveraging those.

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