eCOGRA Said So: Guidelines for Recording Player and Game Activity

The online gambling world holds an amazing diversity of businesses. Some hold themselves to exceptionally high standards … and unfortunately, there are also rogue casinos which have no intention of paying any winnings! One of the industry watchdogs aiming to regulate online casino behaviour and improve consumer trust and experience is eCOGRA. They publish a guidelines document, their ‘Generally Accepted Practices’ for online casinos. Today we continue a series which de-jargonises and clarifies exactly what the eCOGRA seal means in an online casino. Today we check out how eCOGRA seal holders should record and retain records of game and player activity in the casino.

Adequate Recording of Minimum Information

Well, this eCOGRA objective doesn’t hold online casinos to any lofty behaviour standards! The objective with regard to retaining game and player info is:

Seal holders shall be required to adequately record certain minimum information relating to player and game activity.

So, exactly what information is held about you when you play with an eCOGRA accredited casino? It’s all designed for your protection, don’t worry!

Minimum Requirements

The minimum requirements for online casinos are little more than the casino would have to keep in the course of ordinary business. The type of information which MUST be recorded by ALL seal holders is:

• Account history, including all details of transactions which have affected player balances.

If these transactions exceed £10,000 or $10,000, they must be retained for a minimum of 5 years. This limit can be cumulative, it isn’t just for single transactions – as you know, many online casinos have a $5,000 withdrawal limit.

Additionally:

• Any time that game parameters are changed, there should be a report of the instance.

What the Good Guys Do!

If your online casino complies with eCOGRA’s suggested practices, though, they’ll do a bit more to ensure completeness of records of player and game activity.

Information such as the following should be available to eCOGRA – though it may not be available to individual players for competitive reasons and business confidentiality.

• All player details, including identity verification methods, maximum bet levels, exclusion status, account details, any previous accounts held, plus session information.
• Timestamp information of gaming and betting activity
• Reports of players who have been excluded, self-excluded or disqualified

Additionally, whatever database the online casino uses should be capable of generating reports of the following significant events:

• Exclusions of players
• Account creation
• Account deactivation
• Transactions above a certain level
• Changes to player account details
• Changes to player maximum bets

Of course, ordinary players will probably not have access to this privileged data – although it would be interesting to see how much people are winning, how many people get banned, and how many of the casino’s transactions are large ones! Hopefully somebody will give us this gossip in the comments … !