You have almost certainly been asked to verify your identity at a bookmaker, such as the ones BetHunter works with. You know the one: that pop-up saying “you cannot deposit or place a bet until your account has been verified”. That identity check has been mandatory since May 2019 (it was already standard practice before then, but now it is written into operators’ licence conditions). When the rules changed, in fact, plenty of bookmakers rebuilt their sign-up flow so that the checks happen before any money can go in. So what does identity verification involve? What happens if I don’t verify my account? How is it done? Let’s go through it.
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What does identity verification involve?
The Gambling Commission made identity verification a licence condition for a simple reason: to protect the customer and keep fraud out of online gambling. It protects the bookmakers too, of course: they get to make sure their customers are who they say they are. As we said, they were already running checks of their own before the rules changed — so how exactly does a measure like this protect the player?
If you know the sector at all, you will know that trading in other people’s accounts is common. Put plainly: online you can buy a betting account registered in somebody else’s name. The practice breaks every bookmaker’s terms and conditions and, when the person the account belongs to never agreed to sell it, it is illegal. Sadly, it happens all the time. A rule like this is meant to make it harder to pass yourself off as someone else, by holding bookmakers to a much higher standard of verification.
Right, down to it. In practice the rule means that when we register with a bookmaker we have to hand over some personal details such as our passport or driving licence number, and send photos of those documents so the operator can confirm that the registration details match the customer’s real ones. In other words, that you have not invented them and signed up under a made-up identity.
What if I don’t verify my account?
In Britain the order runs the other way round from what many people assume: while the account is unverified you cannot pay money in, and you cannot bet. Most of the time you barely notice, because the checks run electronically while you are signing up… and then there are two moments when they stop you dead, and both matter to any punter. Paying money in, and taking it out.
The first time you try to deposit, you may get a notice telling you that no money can go in until your account has been verified. That step matters, because in many cases the first deposit is what unlocks the well-known welcome offers: with the account unverified, there is nothing to claim. Some bookmakers and online casinos, meanwhile, have moved the checks forward into the registration form itself, so you never reach the cashier with an unverified account.
The second moment when you need to verify your identity at a bookmaker is the withdrawal. If you have not verified your account, you cannot request a withdrawal. Ever. No exceptions. You know how it goes: paying money in is easy, taking it out rather less so. Bookmakers apply these checks, in the end, to make sure the money does not end up in somebody else’s hands. You will not be able to withdraw to a bank account that is not in the account holder’s name, for instance.
How to verify your identity
Verifying your identity at a bookmaker is very simple. Sending your passport or driving licence to the bookmaker (scanned or photographed) should be enough, and some operators will also ask for proof of address, such as a recent bank statement or utility bill. One important detail: the image has to show the whole document, both sides where it has two, and at a resolution that can actually be read. There are two ways to do it:
- By email: all you have to do is attach the images of both sides of your document and send them to the support email address of the bookmaker in question.
- From your account area: bookmakers will usually provide a section inside your account area for online verification. As above, you only have to upload the two images of your identity document and the operator will confirm them.
Once you have sent the documents, the online bookmaker will check them against the details you gave when you registered. After that you will get a confirmation email, and all the restrictions we mentioned in the previous section will be lifted.
Can’t verify your identity?
If the confirmation email does not arrive, be patient. Verification can take a few days. Taking a while does not mean something has gone wrong. If they genuinely could not verify your identity, the bookmaker would normally get in touch to sort the problem out. When verification does run into trouble, these are the most common causes:
- Invalid format: images in JPG, PNG or even PDF cause no trouble, but if you sent them in another format they may be unreadable, and then nothing can be verified.
- Cropped or poor-quality image: if part of the document was cut off when you scanned it, or the photo is badly lit or too low in resolution to read, the account cannot be verified.
- Expired document: they will not be able to verify your identity either if the passport or driving licence has expired, or even if it expires in the days right after you send it.
The good news is that this sort of thing is very easy to put right. If there is a problem, they will ask you to send the document again with the issue sorted. And that is that.
Hi! I’m Aitor Hunt. Before I got into sports arbitrage, I was a frustrated industrial engineer: just another cog in a big company, looking for a radical change.
That changed in 2018, when I came across software built by some friends from the Technical University of Madrid (BetOven), based on maths and automation. I was very sceptical at first (like almost everyone), but I started as a customer, tried it and saw how it worked first-hand. That’s how BetHunter was born. Today I’m here to explain how surebets and value bets work and how to automate them with method, knowing that the risk never goes away.
