Artificial Intelligence researchers collaborate with the online gambling industry to produce a White Paper aimed at combatting money laundering activities.

Collaboration between City, University of London’s Research Centre for Machine Learning, the online gambling operator Kindred, and BetBuddy, Playtech’s responsible gambling data analytics company, has produced the Interview Stakeholder White Paper, titled, “Raising Standards in Compliance: Application of artificial intelligence to online data to identify anomalous behaviours”.

It represents the first findings from a three-year project which will explore how artificial intelligence can be used in anti-money laundering initiatives. This initial research focused on analysing areas requiring improvement for artificial intelligence to be deployed. The next phase of research will use real-world online gambling data to detect signs of money laundering.

The White Paper is authored by City PhD candidate Charitos Charitou; Simo Dragicevic, CEO of BetBuddy, which is part of Playtech, and City PhD supervisor; and City Professor Artur Garcez, Director of the Research Centre for Machine Learning.

The paper is one of the fruits of the partnership entered into by City with Kindred and BetBuddy in 2017 to sponsor a PhD student over three years to explore the use of deep learning and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to strengthen anti-money laundering (AML) decision processes across the UK online gambling industry.

Professor Artur Garcez, Head of City’s Research Centre for Machine Learning, said: We are looking forward to starting the next phase of the research using real-world online gambling data. Some of the techniques available today to detect anomalous behaviour, including state-of-the-art recurrent neural networks, have shown promising results in the analysis of such complex streaming data.

Simo Dragicevic, CEO of BetBuddy, added:  “This initial phase has been important in obtaining stakeholder validation of where areas for improvement exist in AML monitoring. It is clear that whilst this is a very complex challenge, expectations for continuous improvement and investment in research and development using new technologies is high amongst stakeholders.”

Maris Bonello, Head of Player Sustainability and Integrity Analytics at Kindred Group, added: “Collaboration across research, regulators, operators and other partners is crucial if we are to improve techniques and tools to fight fraudulent behaviour across digital platforms. We believe that engaging in research such as this will encourage more transparency and help bridge the work done by operators and academia.”

Participating companies and organisations involved in the Interview Stakeholder White Paper included: Kindred Group, Remote Gambling Association, the Malta Gaming Authority, Financial Intelligence Unit, Malta, Playtech Plc, EPIC Risk Management, and the UK Gambling Commission.