How EveryMatrix’s Bonus Guardian is built to tackle the next generation of bonus abuse

The dangers posed by fraudsters to online betting and gaming businesses have evolved considerably this decade.

The explosion of new AI models in 2022 and 2023 transferred more power than ever before into the hands of fraudsters – and it did not take long for iGaming operators to face the consequences.

Between 2022 and 2024, fraud in the online gaming sector increased by an average of 64% year-over-year, according to Sumsub. Within this increase, bonus abuse emerged as a major concern, with fraudsters increasingly using AI, automation and synthetic identities to exploit promotional offers.

AI-powered technology

Against this backdrop, EveryMatrix launched Bonus Guardian in late 2025, bringing AI-powered technology to the increasingly complex battle against AI-driven fraud.

“Bonus Guardian was developed in response to a clear industry challenge,” says Tetiana Dychenko, chief technical officer, casino at EveryMatrix.

“Bonus abuse has evolved far beyond what manual reviews and static rule-based systems can effectively address. As organised fraud groups began using AI, automation and sophisticated behavioural tactics to exploit promotions, EveryMatrix recognised that operators needed a purpose-built solution focused specifically on bonus abuse rather than generic fraud detection.”

‘The platform analyses hundreds of signals, including gameplay behaviour, deposit patterns, wagering progression and bonus redemption…’

The platform was developed through close collaboration between AI and machine learning specialists, product teams, fraud experts, CRM professionals and casino specialists.

According to Dychenko, that combination of technical expertise and operational experience ensured the solution addressed both the complexity of modern fraud and the commercial realities of running successful promotional campaigns.

Built for the promotion lifecycle

In practice, Bonus Guardian is built to support operators throughout the promotion lifecycle.

It begins before a campaign goes live by helping operators design promotions that remain attractive to genuine players while reducing opportunities for exploitation.

Once a promotion is active, the platform continuously analyses player behaviour across registration, deposits, gameplay, wagering, bonus usage and withdrawals. Rather than relying solely on fixed rules, it builds a behavioural profile for every player and looks for patterns that indicate non-genuine activity or coordinated abuse.

When suspicious behaviour is detected, operators receive both a risk assessment and a clear explanation of the factors that contributed to it. Depending on the level of risk, operators can respond by monitoring activity, restricting promotional eligibility, introducing additional wagering requirements or holding withdrawals for further review.

“The strength of Bonus Guardian lies in behavioural intelligence,” Dychenko adds.

“The platform analyses hundreds of signals simultaneously, including gameplay behaviour, deposit patterns, wagering progression, bonus redemption, session activity and withdrawal behaviour. It also identifies relationships and patterns across multiple accounts that would be almost impossible to detect manually.”

Proportionate response

While complying with tightening KYC, anti-money laundering and bonusing rules is one challenge facing operators, it is also vital to provide friction-free onboarding and rewarding promotions that attract and retain players.

EveryMatrix has recognised this in building a solution that does not sacrifice the experience of legitimate players.

‘One of the platform’s strengths is that it enables proportionate responses rather than binary decisions’

As Dychenko points out, while sophisticated fraudsters increasingly use AI-generated identities, VPNs, device spoofing and other technologies to circumvent traditional verification checks, actual behaviour is far more difficult to disguise.

Therefore, by analysing how players interact with promotions over time, Bonus Guardian can distinguish between genuine customer engagement and organised bonus abuse.

“One of the platform’s strengths is that it enables proportionate responses rather than binary decisions,” Dychenko says.

“Operators can configure actions based on their own commercial objectives and risk appetite. This flexibility helps protect promotional budgets while avoiding unnecessary friction for legitimate players, striking the right balance between fraud prevention and customer experience.”

Marketing and risk collaboration

Available via EveryMatrix’s EngageSuite Bonuses for casino and sports, Bonus Guardian is embedded in the promotion stack. This allows marketing and risk management teams to collaborate so that promotions are designed and modified with fraud-risk parameters in mind, such as account age thresholds and device history.

Such alignment means Bonus Guardian enables contextual controls tied to promotion logic. This, according to EveryMatrix, is a key differentiator, enabling operators to design promotions that are commercially attractive while remaining resilient to abuse.

“Bonus Guardian brings marketing and risk functions together around a shared objective: maximising promotional ROI,” Dychenko adds.

“Marketing teams can continue developing compelling campaigns that drive acquisition and retention, while risk teams gain behavioural insights that help identify vulnerabilities before they become costly.

“Promotions such as tournaments, challenges and loyalty programmes naturally reward sustained engagement, making them more attractive to genuine players than to organised bonus hunters seeking fast returns. The result is stronger campaign performance with significantly lower promotional leakage.”

As Dychenko points out, protecting bonus investment has become a direct driver of profitability in an environment in which promotional leakage may account for 10%-15% of bonus spend in parallel with rising taxes and tighter regulatory requirements.

Therefore, by ensuring promotional budgets reach genuine players instead of organised abuse groups, operators using Bonus Guardian will improve ROI and overall marketing efficiency.

Additionally, with manual review workloads significantly reduced, fraud teams can focus on higher-value investigations while marketing teams simultaneously gain greater confidence that campaign performance reflects genuine customer engagement.

Flexibility

While legacy systems typically rely chiefly on IP checks, device matches and velocity thresholds in isolation, Bonus Guardian tackles a broader range of gambling fraud methods, including multi-account rings, synthetic identities and proxy networks.

Such flexibility is central to the platform, with operators able to tailor risk thresholds, workflows and promotional rules to align with individual brands, player segments, regulatory requirements and commercial strategies. Moreover, it helps the platform – and operators using it – to remain nimble and adaptable as bonus abuse inevitably evolves.

‘Every confirmed fraud case, operator review and behavioural outcome helps refine the underlying models’

“From the outset, the objective was to create an intelligent system that continuously learns from new behaviours and operator feedback, allowing it to evolve alongside increasingly sophisticated abuse techniques,” Dychenko says.

“Continuous learning is fundamental to the platform. Every confirmed fraud case, operator review and behavioural outcome helps refine the underlying models. As new abuse techniques emerge, Bonus Guardian adapts without requiring operators to constantly build new rules.”

Dychenko explains there is no single metric that can measure how successfully an operator is tackling bonus abuse. Instead, several should be taken into consideration.

“Success is measured not simply by the number of players flagged, but through improved detection accuracy, lower false-positive rates, faster investigation times and the platform’s ability to identify emerging abuse patterns before they scale,” Dychenko adds.

A growing issue

This broad outlook, underpinned by the flexibility of Bonus Guardian, will be vital for operators attempting to navigate their way through future fraud threats.

“Bonus abuse will continue to become more organised, more automated and increasingly difficult to distinguish from legitimate player activity,” Dychenko says. “As fraudsters use AI to analyse promotions, generate synthetic identities and rapidly adapt their tactics, operators will need equally adaptive technology.”

One thing is clear: operators cannot afford ...