Is playing by the rules still the safe bet?

Editorial note: The original title, "Is playing by the rules still the safe bet? Rule-based systems vs. AI-powered bonus abuse protection," has been shortened for readability.

Bonus abuse didn’t announce itself as a crisis. It crept in through the edges, and most operators absorbed the cost as an acceptable line on the P&L for far too long. It no longer fits there.

Sumsub’s iGaming Fraud Report identified bonus abuse as one of the industry’s most common fraud vectors, with 63.8% year-on-year growth on average between 2022 and 2024. SEON’s data adds a sharper edge: a bonus abuser claims 2.7x more bonuses than a legitimate player.

That’s promotional budget being systematically drained by people who were never your customers.

The tools most operators use were adequate when bonus abuse was low-tech and isolated, to stop and haven’t kept pace. Today’s threat has outgrown them.

Static rules (such as IP blocks, device limits, wagering thresholds, one-bonus-per-account policies) were built for a different era of abuse. They still have a role, but it’s narrower than most operators realise.

Where static rules belong

Static rules have a defined and narrowing role. Used correctly, they’re fast, explainable, and essential for enforcing fixed policy boundaries. For example, one welcome bonus per person, minimum deposit thresholds, jurisdiction eligibility, and wagering requirements that can’t drop to zero.

Rules also give you immediate levers during live promotions. When abuse signals spike mid-campaign, a rule can block traffic, add cooldown windows between claims, or restrict specific affiliate channels within minutes. But speed against known patterns is not the same as intelligence against new ones.

"Traditional systems struggle because they often rely on fixed rules based on isolated actions. They treat every player the same way no matter what its profiling is," says Stian Enger, Head of Casino at EveryMatrix.

The problem isn’t what rules do. It’s what they assume. Static rules work when inputs are stable, patterns are known, and accounts act independently.

Modern bonus abuse was purpose-built to invalidate all three of those assumptions.

The gap rules were never built to close

Today’s bonus abusers have figured out how to stay outside these static rules triggers. They rotate IPs, randomise device fingerprints, spoof user agents, and spread activity across accounts that each look clean in isolation.

The abuse is only visible when you look across accounts simultaneously, shared device traits, coordinated deposit timing, and identical wagering patterns post-bonus.

AI/ML systems are built exactly for this. Rather than checking accounts against fixed conditions, they create relationship graphs across accounts, devices, and behaviours. They learn what legitimate players look like across different segments and flag deviations that no single rule would catch.

They also reduce false positives, evaluating context rather than isolated signals, which means fewer legitimate playersare blocked and fraud teams are focused on real cases. For operators serious about protecting promotional ROI, this is no longer a nice-to-have.

"Reports show that around 15% of promotional budgets leak directly to abusers. iGaming fraud is rising. Latest data reveals that 63.8% of all fraud in the sector comes from bonus abuse. Bonus abuse has been industrialised," Enger adds.

The right architecture

AI/ML tools, like EveryMatrix’s Bonus Guardian, are built on this principle, using AI and behaviouralanalysis to detect coordinated abuse, operating alongside the policy guardrails operators already have in place.

The question is no longer whether AI-powered bonus abuse detection works. It’s how long operators can afford to rely on systems that don’t. Static rules will keep the edges clean but will not stop an industrialised bonus abuse operation.

Operators who close that gap with the right AI tools protect their promotional budgets, their player trust, and their margins. Those who don’t are funding the other side.