Riptide Technologies Inc., a Vancouver-based technology company, has been selected by the Interactive Gaming Council (IGC) to develop the interactive gaming industry's first industry-wide comprehensive transaction risk management database service. The service will be available to Internet gambling operators and others by the Fall of 1999.
The database will allow online gaming companies to submit credit card transaction data, or other payment information, for comparison against a large database "pool" of records accumulated from the payment experiences of participating merchants, as well as data added from independent data sources.
This risk screening will be done prior to the card record being routed by the merchant to credit card or other networks for authentication, authorization and sale posting. By sending the transactions first through the IGC's central database, gaming merchants often will be advised of customers or transactions that should be avoided. Data in the IGC pool will include a list of blocked "problem gamblers," professional and collegiate athletes and those purchasers who have caused transaction losses to other merchants within the online gaming industry or relevant other industry sectors.
In addition to conducting a payment record-match with the IGC database, transactions submitted to the IGC risk management service will be heuristically profiled to determine if the pattern of the transaction deviates from predictive patterns of acceptable transactions. For instance, the service will monitor activity like excessive purchase authorization attempts within a period of time, unusual frequency of cards from a particular card issuing bank source, mismatches between the card record and the address of record for the cardholder or lack of match between the printed card identifying number on the back of credit cards (called the CVV2 number), as well as many additional risk profiling factors.
"This is yet another landmark we have passed in the development and maturation of our industry," said Alan Schneider, IGC's executive director. "There are a couple of privately-developed risk management databases already available to online gaming operators. However, they are only accessible to the subset of operators who happen to be clients of a particular service. Therefore, the merchants cannot benefit from the shared transaction experience of the entire industry. Now, the IGC will own the data to assure accessibility by anyone in the industry. We are exclusively licensing and endorsing an extremely well-qualified vendor to develop the systems and operate the service. We believe this centralized database will provide the most thorough and reliable risk prevention possible."
Riptide, a developer of software designed for auditing gaming application software in the land-based lottery industry, was chosen over 12 other technology companies. Among its technology management clients are some of the largest and most prestigious traditional gaming-industry companies in the world.
"Our foremost effort will be on affirming the absolute independence and integrity of the service and providing a totally secure environment. … all so we can earn the trust and universal participation of the industry," said Riptide President Michael Meeks. "We see this as an opportunity to create a socially beneficial service, that proves the seriousness of the industry in readying itself for the imminent era of regulation that is sure to come in due course. This service also adds an essential line of economic defense for merchants in this explosive new industry."
Meeks also pointed out that the database could very well soon be embraced by the traditional gaming industry as well, adding, "We already are receiving very serious expressions of interest from some of our largest clients."
The IGC is a Vancouver-based non-profit trade association that represents the leading operators and affiliated vendors in the worldwide interactive gaming industry.
Riptide is a privately owned company, supported by a significant cash flow, consulting contracts and sales of its software products, which provides a complete service for the management, analysis, development, installation and support of client server based systems.