Sumsub's iGaming Fraud Report 2026 highlights the necessity of multi-step defense and ongoing checks across the entire player journey, with scams getting smarter with AI

LONDON, June 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Sumsub, a leading full-cycle verification platform that enables scalable compliance, has released the latest edition of its annual iGaming Fraud Report 2026, revealing a critical shift in how fraud is evolving across the industry.

Now in its third consecutive year, the report draws on 3M+ fraud attempts observed across iGaming verifications*, to track industry trends and shifts in fraud dynamics during 2024-2026.

Key findings include:

• Suspicious transaction volumes rose 4.5x between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026, with the average suspicious transaction value climbing to $6,500 (€6,002), up from $3,960 (€3,664)
• The global iGaming fraud rate reached 1.53% of all verification attempts in Q1 2026, up 18% year-on-year and up nearly 40% since 2024
• From Q1 2025 to Q1 2026, verification speeds for legitimate users became 2x faster
• Fraudsters now take 4.6x longer to perform a verification attempt than legitimate players, — a widening gap pointing to increasingly deliberate, manual attacks
• Popular attack vectors include AI-enhanced documents, deepfakes and face swaps; large account farms, proxy infrastructure; behavioral masking and liveness bypass attempts using injection tools; manipulation of prediction markets; and fraud-as-a-service bot packing and multi-site arbitrage
• ID card fraud increased 27% globally since 2024, with 2.1% of submissions now fraudulent. However, passports remain the most commonly forged document type, with a fraud rate of 2.2%
• The gap between the highest (Africa, 2.54%) and lowest (North America, 0.44%) regional fraud rates is 5.8x.

Fraud Has Moved Past the Front Door

The overall fraud rate has risen from 1.10% in 2024 to 1.53% in Q1 2026 — an increase of nearly 40% in two years. At the same time, the small proportion of fraud that slips past the first line of defense is significantly more sophisticated than what was observed just two or three years ago. Today, every step of the verification process faces attacks from advanced fakes, meaning identifying these fraudsters demands more than a single, precise check. For fraud prevention teams, it is now more about connecting weak signals than catching one obvious red flag.

Fraudsters now spend 4.6x longer attempting verification than legitimate players — double the ratio recorded last year. The widening gap points to more deliberate, manual attacks: fraudsters making repeated attempts, testing document combinations, and navigating liveness (facial biometric) checks step by step. Around 12% of fraudsters fall into the very-slow or very-fast outlier groups, and fraudsters make 20–30% more verification attempts than honest players.

AI is accelerating the problem. Fraud schemes including bonus abuse, opposite betting, bot creation, and multi-accounting are being industrialised using AI tooling, generating volumes of fraud content — synthetic faces, edited documents, templated identities — that create significant operational pressure even when individual attempts are low quality.

"Right now, the industry is seeing a huge amount of AI-generated or AI-assisted fraud content. An 'industry-wide DDoS attack of AI-slop', if we're willing to put it into stronger terms. That includes: synthetic faces, edited documents, templated identities, and mass-generated applications," explains Kris Galloway, iGaming Product Evangelist at Sumsub. "Even when many of these attempts are low-quality individually, together, they create enormous operational pressure on verification systems, manual review teams, and fraud operations. AI dramatically lowers the cost and effort required to commit fraud at scale, and professional fraud groups are already taking advantage of it."

A World of Contrasts at Play: Regional Findings

The global fraud rate average masks a 5.8x gap between the most and least fraud-affected regions. Africa leads at 2.54% — though it has improved since 2024, with 97% of fraud caught at the selfie stage. APAC has seen the sharpest improvement of any region, falling 45% from 3.49% in 2024 to 1.92%, with liveness attacks accounting for 66% of detected fraud.

Europe's rate remains stable at 1.14%. While hardly moving in the past three years, the nature of fraud has become increasingly sophisticated: 41% involved deepfakes, the highest concentration of any region globally. LATAM has seen sustained fraud growth of around 30% over two years reaching 1.14% in 2026, and showing the highest share of fake proof-of-address documents. North America recorded the lowest fraud rate at 0.44% — down 62% since 2024 — though nearly half of that fraud (49%) involves selfie fraud.

To dive deeper into the full 2026 iGaming Fraud Report, please go to https://sumsub.com/igaming-fraud-report-2026/.

*Methodology

The Sumsub 2026 iGaming Fraud Report is based on internal verification data drawn from millions of identity checks conducted across the iGaming industry between Q1 2024 and Q1 2026, combined with 30+ interviews with industry experts, fraud and compliance specialists. All data has been aggregated and anonymised. Sumsub's research methodology is reviewed against global AML standards. It has been used by outside researchers at Statista, EGBA, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and INTERPOL, as well as by trade press covering regulated gambling.

About Sumsub

Sumsub is a leading full-cycle verification platform that enables fraud-free, scalable compliance. Its adaptive, no-code solution covers everything from identity and business verification to ongoing monitoring – quickly adjusting to evolving risks, regulations, and market demands.

Recognized as a Leader by Gartner, Forrester, and IDC, Sumsub combines seamless integration with advanced fraud prevention to deliver industry-leading performance.

Over 4,000 clients—including Kaizen Gaming, SOFTSWISS, World Sports Betting and Betmaster—trust Sumsub to streamline verification, prevent fraud, and drive growth. The platform's methodology follows leading global AML standards and regulations, and Sumsub has extensively engaged with leading research and public institutions like the UN, Statista, and INTERPOL.

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SOURCE Sumsub