Your bank statement is completely private and it is understandable that you would not want to show it to anyone. In fact, you would be within your rights to refuse to provide your bank statements to anyone. After all, you do not want to leave yourself open to identity theft or some other form of crime.
There are some exceptions to this of course. If you wanted to borrow money for the purchase of a new home then a mortgage lender is very likely to ask you to furnish some bank statements. This is to prove that you have the financial wherewithal to repay the loan that you are asking for.
What about an online casino? If an online casino asked you to provide bank statements, what would you do? You may be tempted to refuse this request as it is none of their business what money you have. But an online casino can legally request that you send copies of bank statements to them and will probably refuse your registration if you don’t comply with this.
Online casino verification process
It is usual for the majority of online casinos to have a strict verification process in place these days. There are laws ad regulations such as KYC (Know Your Customer) that oblige them to do this. In most cases, new players will have to furnish some form of ID in order for an online casino to accept them.
There are two main reasons for an online casino requesting that a new player provide ID documentation to prove who they are:
- They need to verify that the new player is of the legal age to gamble
- They need to prevent any money laundering activities taking place
All governments have strict laws about how old a person has to be to gamble. In a lot of cases an individual needs to be at least 18 years of age and in some cases, they need to be at least 21 years of age. The online casino needs to see proof that they are old enough to gamble.
This is why an online casino will demand that new players provide copies of valid documents that prove their age. Usually a passport, national ID card (where this is applicable) or a driving license are the only documents that the online casino will accept.
When a new player copies these documents, they must ensure that all of the details are clear. The online casino needs to be able to see the name of the player and their date of birth. There are usually no exceptions to this. If a new player refuses to supply this documentary proof, then they will not be able to gamble at the online casino.
Some players feel that this is a real liberty and look for alternative ways to register with online casinos. One option that is available these days is to find no account casinos that do not have a verification process. You need to be careful here as not all of these casinos with no accounts are on the level.
Verifying your source of funds
Why would an online casino ask you to verify proof of income? The main reason for this is to prevent any money laundering activities. They also do this to ensure that there will be no other fraudulent activities occurring in new player accounts.
Some new players like to make large deposits when they first register with an online casino. Often, this will set a red flag and trigger the online casino staff to request verification of source of funds. It is in the interest of the online casino to prove that you have the necessary funds to make large deposits.
Under the terms of some casino operating licenses, an online casino must ensure that a player has the disposal income available to gamble. This is to avoid players getting into financial difficulty due to excessive gambling.
If you are asked to prove your source of income then the most common way to prove this is by providing the online casino with copies of your recent bank statements. They may require additional proof such as credit card statements, copies of payslips, copies of statements from e-wallets such as PayPal and more.
An online casino needs to protect itself from any accusations that it is encouraging players to spend money they don’t have by playing their casino games. There are a lot of people with a gambling problem out there, and the casino wants to be seen as squeaky clean if there are any repercussions.
If an online casino fails to implement proper KYC and source of funds checks then they can have their licenses revoked. They want to avoid this at all costs, so they will do whatever is necessary to cover all of their bases.