How much revenue do fake casino games drain? With Jack Crabtree of GameCheck

Counterfeit slot games now look seamless, while their maths can be manipulated without the player ever knowing. In this Right to the Source episode, hosts Robin Harrison and Ed Burkitt talk to Jack Crabtree, who heads sales and partnerships at GameCheck, about how fake games spread and how the company exposes them.

In this episode

• Crabtree's headline stat is that 5 to 10% of the industry operates some kind of fake game, mostly where regulation is grey, weak or non-existent, and on sites targeting at-risk players (5:27, 5:48, 6:04).

• Fakes used to mean dodgy music and bad graphics; now they are seamless, and some operators have hired ex-provider developers. He says AI speeds this up rather than creating the issue (3:53, 3:55, 4:42).

• The public figure is 8,500 fake games detected, but he says the real number is probably slightly higher, and GameCheck found a large number of fakes in Brazil (8:19, 8:44, 8:49).

• Suspect sites come from researchers, supplier tips and players. GameCheck plays real games with real money, then the provider confirms whether the game is real or fake (9:25, 9:58, 10:23).

• Cease-and-desist letters to offshore operators get no response and taken-down sites return days later, so the aim is to name and shame sites to players (12:51, 12:56).

• He says Evolution's CEO called people copying its games one of the company's biggest revenue leakages (23:26).

Episode 41 of Right to the Source by iGaming Business, published on YouTube.