Q&A with Steve Delaney, Head of Payments, Risk, and Fraud
Introduction
In this latest edition of Leading the Charge, we’re putting the spotlight on Steve, White Label Casinos’ Head of Payments, Risk, and Fraud. With a keen eye for detail and a results-driven approach, Steve ensures that payments run smoothly, fraudsters stay out, and legitimate players enjoy a seamless experience. In this interview, he shares his insights on balancing risk mitigation with player satisfaction, the evolving landscape of fraud prevention, and the key initiatives that keep White Label Casinos ahead of the curve. Ready to dive into the world of payments, risk, and fraud? Keep reading for the full breakdown.
Question Time
1. Can you walk us through a typical day in your role as Head of Payments, Risk and Fraud at White Label Casinos?
I always start with a look at the previous day’s processing figures for all the casinos, and have catch up meetings with the managers, to review any long-term challenges and align on solutions.
We also run through the latest news on onboarding new casinos, new migrations etc. and make sure we have everything in place we need to ensure a casino’s success. It’s about keeping on top of the day-to-day operations and immediate priorities. I have several meetings each day with various departments (Customer Support, PSP, PSP Recon, Account Managers etc), as well as managers who report to me and my own boss, where necessary.
Effective and regular communication ensures alignment across departments, allows us to quickly address any emerging challenges, and keeps operations running smoothly.
There’s a lot of ad hoc stuff too as I make myself available to anyone who needs me, whatever department they are from
2.What are the key challenges you face, and how do you approach them?
The focus is on balancing risk mitigation with player experience, ensuring fraud prevention doesn’t overly restrict legitimate players while keeping “no value” players out.
This partly comes from internal controls—fraud detection tools, threshold triggers, effective KYC, and efficient chargeback handling.
It also comes from fast processing of withdrawals. And of course, keeping on top of the latest changes to regulations so we can remain compliant but maximise the business potential
3. Bonus abuse and bonus hunters are constant challenges in online gaming, with multi-accounting being a major tactic. How does your team detect and prevent players from creating multiple accounts to exploit promotions
Our advanced platform helps us with flagging up duplicate accounts within the same brands. Players can never benefit from that!
” Effective and regular communication ensures alignment across departments, allows us to quickly address any emerging challenges, and keeps operations running smoothly.”
Steve Delaney, Head of Payments, Risk, and Fraud
4. Fraudsters are always evolving their methods. What are some of the key indicators your team looks for when identifying payment fraud, and how do you stay ahead of new threats?
The tools we use as well, as a very keen eye from well-trained agents make sure we stay ahead of any new threats here. Our clients are helpful too and can offer some insights based on their own data, especially around registrations.
We continuously refine our approach to stay ahead of evolving threats.
5. Preventing fraud is critical but so is providing a seamless experience for genuine players. How do you ensure strong security measures without negatively impacting trusted users?
The tools and manual checks we have are so refined now that legitimate players being held up with their experience is extremely rare. For the vast majority of players, withdrawals are processed within industry-standard timeframes. However, we’re continuously exploring ways to streamline this process even further.
At the same time fraudsters aren’t getting away with anything. We rarely have a casino coming to us and questioning how we do things, and we maintain strong compliance standards, and regulatory reviews consistently confirm our approach.
6. Fraud, risk, and payments involve multiple teams working together. How does yours collaborate to maintain a secure and efficient gaming environment?
We have three departments, Payments, KYC and AML. It helps immensely having them under one Head of Department, in my opinion, as there needs to be a certain synergy between them all.
Payments can’t do anything until the KYC and AML departments are satisfied the player has passed the necessary regulatory checks. We have channels between the three departments and the managers, and I have regular catchups to make sure we all work smoothly together, and it works.
“My style is focused on the details and ensuring we communicate with each other and others outside of the departments.“
Steve Delaney, Head of Payments, Risk, and Fraud
7. With fraud tactics constantly evolving, what trends or technologies do you think will play the biggest role in shaping the future of fraud prevention and payments in online gaming?
I could write an essay on this. Fraudsters adapt as quickly as we evolve a security measure. AI is an obvious route to go down in the future as it can be faster in identifying patterns of fraudulent behaviour and it can do it in real-time and therefore not ‘think’ like a traditional machine.
Meaning it can learn from experience and look at things in a way a human might when analysing player behaviour.
The same applies to KYC and making sure we have the tools to do the bulk of KYC and identity verification. I really could go on and it would also include more crypto processing because it’s transparent and secure.
8. Since joining White Label Casinos, what key initiatives have you led to improve payments and fraud prevention?
Since joining White Label Casinos, I’ve been involved in implementing a range of initiatives to improve payments and fraud operations. Some of the main ones include:
- Continuously evolving training and ensuring that everyone in my team has multiple evaluations carried out on their processing, every month, to ensure our high standards are maintained.
- Checking all deposits for signs of abuse patterns, especially strategy gangs.
- Closely working with the PSP Recon team to catch reversals on some methods.
- Pioneering internal tools like the gameplay checker to assist with catching a significant amount of abuse automatically.
- A split between some KYC automation and improved manual procedures that have reduced player waiting times from up to 5 days to same day.
- Extra manual checks as well as tools to catch potential “no value” registrations.
- A refined AML approach that ensures full compliance while maintaining operational efficiency.
9. What is the most rewarding part of your role?
When things run smoothly. With 50 casinos to provide payment processing and a robust KYC and AML procedure, it’s very satisfying when things run smoothly.
Quickfire Round:
A big thank you to Steve for sharing his expertise and giving us a glimpse into the world of payments at White Label Casinos.
Stay tuned to learn more from White Label Casinos’ leaders.
