One of the largest Australian gambling operators – Tabcorp Holdings – is to use special intelligence software in order to monitor so-called high-risk customers in its retail shops and gambling platform in order to guarantee that they would be in line with the requirements of the local licensing authorities.
For the time being, the company has around 9,000 gambling sites across the country. Reportedly, the operator is working on the deployment of the IBM i2 visual intelligence and investigative analysis software for a period of a year and a half. The i2 Analyst’s Notebook became part of IBM after an acquisition deal which was finalized in 2011.
At the IBM’s THINK conference in 2019, John Graham, who occupies the position of national manager for retail assurance at the Australian company, confessed that the operator has been facing some difficulties when it comes to tracking the activities of every customer throughout its operation. For the time being, Tabcorp has three major businesses – betting and media through its two brands TAB and Sky, gaming services, and Keno and Lotteries.
Mr. Graham has explained that all three operational units of the company run legacy systems of their own, with their datasets being essentially different and the data being held in different formats. Now, the company has finally found a way to bring these datasets together in order to establish a single customer view.
Unfortunately for Tabcorp, there are some additional challenges the company will have to face because it handles cash and provides its customers with the chance to place wagers without them being required to be registered with the operator in any way or form. As explained by Mr. Graham, the Australian gambling company has customers who are actually able to bet effectively anonymously, so Tabcorp now needs to give its best in order to improve its methods to find out more about those customers and the risks they could be for the company.
Tabcorp Set to Demonstrate Responsible Gambling Policy Engagement, Too
According to Tabcorp’s national manager for retail assurance, customers who bet anonymously could pose risks of criminal behavior, including collusion, money laundering, different types of fraud, etc. The retail risk team headed by Mr. Graham has been created to limit the chances of such activity to occur.
He explained that collusive behavior is one of the main challenges faced by the business, sharing that investigation of that type of activity is never easy.
The IBM i2 technology is set to help the company investigation teams to follow the traces of any possible criminal activity by linking the different pieces of information collected across the operations of Tabcorp. In a way, this was previously done by the Australian gambling operator in Excel. However, it was hard for the operator to identify the systemic risks, as well as to present the findings to decision-makers internally.
Mr. Graham shared that the process was too long, with one investigation into credit card fraud through the company’s TAB account taking more than three months to run. Apart from providing the company with the chance to carry out its investigations quicker, the i2 technology would also help Tabcorp demonstrate its responsible gambling policy to state and territory regulatory bodies.
