Why Ongoing Compliance Audits Are Essential for iGaming
Compliance in the iGaming world is never a one-time project. With so many regulations to meet within the industry, it is crucial that operators and publishers alike continue to review and adjust their efforts as the industry continues to develop.
Many publishing and iGaming operator websites take significant effort to ensure that their websites are in compliance with the regulations before they go live. However, many do not provide the same level of effort to ensure that their websites remain in compliance after they are live.
Regular compliance audits for their websites will allow these publishers and iGaming operators to continually ensure that their websites are in compliance and that they do not create any issues that may impact their partnerships or revenues.
What Is a Compliance Audit?
A compliance audit is a thorough review of a website to ensure that it remains in compliance with the regulations and requirements of that website and its operators.
These audits will review the website to determine if there are any requirements that must be met and will allow those publishing houses and operators to take corrective action before the issues have an impact on their website.
Audits can include a review of the website’s content, functionality, and editorial content.
Why Compliance Requires Continuous Review
The world of iGaming continues to change at a rapid rate. Whether it is new regulations being released, new licensing requirements, changes to the policies of the iGaming operators, or even changes to the promotions themselves, each of these areas can have an impact on the compliance of the websites.
A page that was in compliance with the regulations of its operators a few months ago may require changes to remain compliant today.
Review Promotional Content
Many iGaming websites offer bonuses and other promotions to their high-traffic websites. These promotions change from operator to operator and from page to page.
During a compliance audit, each of these promotions should be reviewed to ensure that they are up to date and accurate.
Publishing a promotion that is outdated can lead to issues in their relationship with the iGaming operators.
Verify Affiliate Links
All of the affiliate links on a website should direct visitors to the appropriate content on the iGaming operator websites.
These links should be audited to ensure they are working correctly.
Publishers that have affiliate links that do not work or are outdated can suffer losses in their revenues as well as face compliance issues.
Check Licensing Information
Many iGaming operators continue to expand the number of markets in which they are active and the licensing of those markets.
Content on the websites should be reviewed to ensure that the licensing information is up to date with those new markets and licenses.
Failure to ensure that licensing information is accurate can lead to visitors making incorrect decisions about which operators to support.
Evaluate Responsible Gambling Messaging
A responsible gambling website should have responsible gambling content visible on most of its web pages.
These web pages should be reviewed to ensure they contain this content and that it is current.
Failure to provide such content may demonstrate a lack of commitment to the regulations of the iGaming websites.
Audit Geographic Targeting
Many publishing houses that operate iGaming websites target specific countries.
These countries should be audited to ensure they are actively adding the correct operators to their websites and ensuring that the information about each of these operators is up to date.
Review Affiliate Disclosures
All publishing houses must reveal to their website visitors that many of the links on their websites will lead to revenues for the publisher.
These disclosures should be reviewed to ensure that they are present on all appropriate web pages and are visible to the visitors of those websites.
Test Website Functionality
Many publishing houses rely upon the engineering departments of their websites to ensure that their websites are functioning correctly.
These engineering departments should review the website to ensure that most visitors experience the same content and navigation as the other visitors to the websites.
Maintain Documentation
Each audit requires documentation in order to demonstrate the changes that were made and the reasons for those changes.
Audits should contain documentation regarding the findings of the audit, the corrections made to the website, and any other information that will help with future audits.
Schedule Regular Audits
Regular audits can prevent many of the issues created by outdated websites.
Many publishing houses find value in reviewing their top pages every month, their operator reviews every quarter, their compliance every six months, and their technical systems and websites continuously.
Use Automation to Improve Efficiency
As publishing houses develop websites with more features, content, promotions, and pages, it can be challenging to review each website manually.
Automation tools can alert the publishers of issues with links, promotions, compliance, and more.
AI Is Supporting Compliance Reviews
Artificial intelligence solutions are beginning to support publishing houses with compliance reviews of their websites.
AI systems can review websites for issues with content, promotions, and links. Additionally, they can also alert publishers of regulatory changes in the industry.
Common Audit Mistakes
Audits lose their effectiveness if the publishing houses or the operators do not review the appropriate areas of their websites.
Many of the most common issues with website compliance audits are that the operators only review their promotional content, do not address technical issues on the website, do not maintain documentation of the audits, conduct them too infrequently, and do not monitor the updates from the iGaming operators themselves.
Best Practices
Some best practices for compliance audits include reviewing only the promotional content, high-traffic pages, and affiliate links on a website.
Additionally, any changes to the operators, licensing, and promotions should be reviewed, as well as any responsible gambling content and website functionality.
The Future of Compliance Auditing
As with the other areas of the iGaming industry, compliance auditing will develop hand-in-hand with the other technologies used by the industry.
Many of the upcoming changes to compliance auditing will include the creation of systems that continuously monitor the content of websites, implement artificial intelligence to rate the compliance of those websites, create alerts regarding regulatory changes, and even develop systems that can anticipate potential compliance issues with websites.
Final Thoughts
For every successful iGaming business, compliance audits are essential. Whether it is due to changes in regulations, operator requirements, or promotional content, regular audits are necessary to protect the revenue and reputation of the company.
By performing regular compliance audits, maintaining accurate documentation of the websites, employing automation to monitor those websites, and continuously improving the auditing process, publishing houses and iGaming operators can prevent any issues from developing on their websites. For these reasons, regular audits are one of the smartest investments that a company can make.