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Most casinos don’t ask you for KYC up front if you are playing with crypto. But if you win big and try to make a withdrawal, you may just find yourself the recipient of such a request, asking you for personally-identifying documents. In this article we give you tips on how to avoid the dreaded KYC request from crypto casinos, removing risks involved with sharing your personal information.

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How to Avoid KYC Requests at Crypto Casinos: 5 Tips

 

Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) practices are becoming increasingly common in the crypto casino industry. If you didn’t know, KYC is the process of submitting copies of identifying documents and sometimes pictures of oneself in order to sign up to and/or withdraw from a casino. Online casinos employ these practices for three reasons:

  1. They need to do so to remain compliant with the terms of their license.
  2. They want to satisfy regulations within the jurisdiction of their office and of their customers.
  3. They want to verify that a user is not multi-accounting or from a prohibited jurisdiction.

Providing your personal information to anyone online proposes a certain degree of risk. There are ways to minimize this risk, and it starts with only playing at reputable casinos that are owned by companies who have a clean track record; their casinos free of hacking incidents where customer data may have been exposed.

If a casino has a license that means it respects at least some standards, and a good reputation among the community can go a long way in vouching for the legitimacy of its KYC practices.

But let’s face it: it’s always better if you don’t have to provide any personal information at all. That way the probability of it being sold, published or misused against you is zero. Since casinos that get it will probably hold your personal information forever, you will always remain at some sort of risk, potentially leading to negative consequences even years into the future — all just so you could gamble at an online casino.

There are some situations where it may be impossible to avoid KYC. For example, in the case of a big win where a payout of a few thousand dollars is involved, a KYC request is almost always triggered as they do not want to pay out money to anyone who is gambling on their site outside of the casino’s terms and services. This goes for sportsbooks, as well.

Another reason would be to confirm your identity if they suspect you of multi-accounting. If you don’t feel comfortable with exposing your personal identity to a casino, it is imperative to read the terms and conditions of that casino to determine if they are likely to ask you to perform KYC.

 

So, without further ado, here is our list of 5 things you should do to avoid getting a KYC request from a crypto casino:

#1. Don’t Open Multiple Accounts!

This is perhaps the easiest thing to avoid doing but the most common reason why people get asked for KYC. Casinos are wary of people who create multiple accounts in order to take advantage of their welcome bonuses. The thinking is that one account may hit it big with the first deposit bonus money; thus its easy money to open up an unlimited number of accounts on the same casino. Most casinos will be very specific about their multi-accounting policy in their terms of service, and they usually don’t allow it.

Besides all this, if you win big, most casinos will usually look for any excuse there is not to have to pay you, just as a basic part of business practices. This includes checking your IP information to see if it has been used to play at the casino under a different account name. If you connect to the internet using public wifi, such as at a university, library or internet café, there’s a chance your account may be unfairly associated with someone else accessing the casino from that location. This could also trigger a KYC request, so it’s a good idea to always register an account and play from a private connection.

#2. Don’t Use a VPN

Not all casinos or sportsbooks prohibit the use of a VPN, however, using one while creating an account or logging in could prompt a KYC check on your account. If you use one VPN address from start to finish, and the IP address is static (never changes), then the casino might see nothing suspicious about your account.

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If you register from a regular, local connection and then switch to VPN later on, there’s a good chance the casino will want to make sure you actually moved countries and have not been hacked. Using what is known to be a VPN address might also make the casino think you are playing from a restricted country.

#3. Keep Your Deposits and Withdrawals Small

Most casinos have thresholds for KYC requests when it comes to withdrawal site. It may not seem like the right thing to do, but the truth is casinos will generally only ask for KYC if you are attempting to make a sizeable withdrawal (over $1,000). They don’t care about your identity when you’re losing, but the moment you try to cash out a big win, you can bet they will. That’s why it’s a good idea to avoid attracting attention to your account by only withdrawing small amounts at a time (up to $200).

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As an example of a casino that doesn’t enforce KYC for moderate withdrawals, some players have reported being able to perform KYC-free withdrawals of four digits regularly on Betcoin.ag, but caution that this is only possible because they are making their withdrawals in Bitcoin (BTC).

#4. Play at Anonymous Casinos

In this day and age, almost all reputable casinos require basic personal information from their customers and reserve the right to request KYC should they feel the need arises. However, there are a few crypto casinos that are entirely anonymous and will never ask you for your identification. They usually don’t offer bonuses, so there is no advantage to be gained from registering multiple accounts. Most dice sites won’t ask for KYC. These include Bustabit, Bustadice, Just-Dice, and Wolf.bet.

One of the only anonymous and (almost) truly KYC-free casinos with a decent-to-good reputation is BitcoinPenguin. They tend to only ask for KYC in the case of a big win. As far as sportsbooks are concerned, Nitrogensports has been accepting anonymous player registrations since 2012.

#5. Play at DApp Casinos

Much like DEXs and DeFi projects, casino and gambling DApps don’t require KYC. Everything that happens there is automated and requires no human intervention. Thus, short of blacklisting your coin addresses, there’s nothing these types of casinos can or will do to stop you from playing at them. DApp casinos have come a long way over the last couple years and offer a more flexible array of gambling experiences than ever (including sports gambling). Some of the top gambling DApps include Xether (ETH), EOSbet (EOS), TronPredict (TRX), decentral.games (MATIC), CasinoFair (ETH) and dice2.win (ETH).

In summary, the best way to avoid KYC requests is by not engaging with casinos that explicitly reserve the right to ask for KYC materials. It’s true that the major casinos have the best games and the biggest selection, so if you do decide to play at them, just be sure to follow their rules — and don’t forget to keep your withdrawals small. Try to keep yourself “under the radar” by not attracting attention to yourself.

Unfortunately, the state of crypto regulation regarding casino operation and KYC practices is not optimal, and unfortunately there is no good way to go about the issue at the moment. On one hand, many casino operators have a perfect record when it comes to safely storing sensitive customer data. On the other hand, for as long as the casino has your information on record, the chance exists that it may one day be hacked. At the end of the day, you’ll have to decide if playing at a casino is worth the risk. In the meantime, avoiding KYC altogether by following our tips is the best way to go.