The online gambling industry has grown into a massive worldwide craze in the 21st century. With a huge variety of online casinos now available, the complex regulatory regimes that govern them can be confusing for players to understand.
Much of that confusion relates to the differences between casinos that must abide by KYC checks and those that don’t. Here’s a look at how it all works.
Knowing How to Choose a Safe No-KYC Casino
Given how many online casinos there are out there now, it’s not always easy for players to discern which ones are safe. According to gambling expert and author Kane Pepi in his analysis of the safest platforms, no KYC casinos are gambling sites that don’t require an ID. This means that players can gamble on slots, table games, live games, and more without submitting any personal documents.
While this may seem risky, trustworthy reviewer sites take the time to complete a thorough review of the best and safest sites, so customers know exactly which ones can be trusted. Aside from being safe to use, they also compare the services offered and the perks provided to customers such as which ones offer the best bonuses, the lowest minimum deposits, and much more.
The reason that these review services even exist is because of the demand out there for players who want to play on platforms that don’t perform any verification or ID checks. To understand why this is, we first have to know how mainstream casinos that opt into these checks work and why they perform them.
Why Do KYC Checks Exist?
Know Your Customer (KYC) checks refer to a series of regulations that exist to combat a variety of financial crimes. Around the world, problems like international money laundering, funding of terrorism and tax evasion are very real and very prevalent problems. Given how complex the global financial system has become, unscrupulous actors who partake in these crimes have become astute at using the system to hide their criminal activities.
In order to combat them, authorities require financial institutions and other companies and organisations that deal with complex financial transactions to make them transparent and traceable. One of the key ways of doing this is to require such entities to vet and disclose a variety of personal and sensitive information about every person that utilises their services.
In that sense, KYC checks become a way for such organisations to identify and track their customers, hopefully without annoying them. Since online casinos can often be accessed by people anywhere in the world, use real money to play, and deal with money flowing between the platform and the customer, they can sometimes be used for illegal purposes.
To combat this, online casinos that wish to abide by KYC rules require their players to first register and provide all relevant identifying and financial documentation before they can play. The problem with this for ordinary players is that it can become cumbersome. Most players just want to play their favourite casino games without having to part with sensitive information about themselves first.
Why No-KYC Casinos Don’t Require These Checks?
Over time, the number of players who prefer to play on platforms that don’t require a stringent sign-up process has grown a lot. This has created an entire market for casinos that can offer them a more private experience. In a similar way to how non-GamStop casinos exist for players to reclaim their freedom from the restrictions of the GamStop regime, No-KYC casinos have become vastly more popular with players who want a less restrictive experience.
The way they work is to simply bypass the entire process by allowing players to sign up and play without a formal registration process. Such casinos often also accept cryptocurrencies as their main payment and payout methods. While cryptocurrency transactions aren’t completely anonymous, they make it easier for players to maintain a degree of anonymity while playing. The only drawback to such casinos is the fact that KYC checks are usually a precondition to licensing requirements for casinos that operate within a legal jurisdiction that mandates it.
As a result, it may be perfectly legal for such casinos to operate without performing KYC checks, but they may have to operate as unlicensed casinos to do so. Fortunately, to ensure such unlicensed casinos don’t forego other regulations that benefit players and provide security for them, the review sites discussed above act as an important check and balance on such casinos. Doing so ensures they otherwise operate in a fair and trustworthy manner despite not having KYC checks.
Conclusion
The difference between casinos that require KYC checks and those that don’t relate to the checks themselves. KYC checks require customers to first provide personal identifying and financial information before they can sign up to play at most online casinos.
However, some players find this procedure burdensome and prefer being able to play more privately. No-KYC casinos were created to service this market since they offer players the chance to play without first undergoing any stringent registration processes. KYC casinos opt into such checks while no-KYC casinos simply opt out of them in order to allow players to forgo the need to supply personal information about themselves to play.