ClearStake works with Hollywoodbets to reduce the churn rate of players during financial checks

The company

Hollywoodbets is one of the largest gambling operators in Africa, and the brand behind a growing international business spanning sports betting, casino, and fixed odds games. Recent expansion into the UK and Irish markets position Hollywoodbets as a true global player, a status backed by the company's sponsorship of Premier League team, Brentford F.C.

The challenge

The move to the UK market brought specific regulatory challenges. Most relevant in this context, operators are required to perform ‘enhanced due diligence’ (EDD) checks in order to:

• Establish that the player can afford to stake when they pass a net loss over a certain amount, and
• Ensure that the money being used to fund an account comes from a legitimate source.

These reasonable checks obviously require Hollywoodbets to request financial information, specifically bank statements, from their customers. 

In the past, this has been done manually. A Compliance Officer contacts the customer, requests the statements, and then makes a judgement based on the information that has been shared. It imposes a cost, but more importantly, a large number of players churn: they are never seen again.

This churn had a significant impact on revenue for Hollywoodbets. Since players who are asked to perform EDD checks are high-spend customers who are, by definition, the most valuable players to the business, that should be no surprise. 

Hollywoodbets turned to ClearStake to help.

The solution

The goal was to replace a lengthy, manual process with a faster, more automated solution that helped Hollywoodbets make affordability decisions faster and more accurately. That in turn improves both player protection (by ensuring all decisions were made consistently and in full knowledge of a player’s financial situation), and revenues by dramatically reducing the number of players who churn during the EDD process.

The ClearStake solution uses Open Banking to deliver a process that is:

• Fast: For players - it only takes seconds to share financial data - and for Hollywoodbets, as they receive a much more refined set of data for analysis, saving much time.
• Easy: The Hollywoodbets team simply creates a case within ClearStake, and then shares a link with the customer using their own communications channels. For the player, sharing data then takes just a couple of clicks and can be done straight from their phone.
• Accurate: ClearStake automatically reads and categorises financial transactions, giving a summary of a player’s financial position that can be relied upon.
• Secure: Data is shared on the player’s own terms, and remains in a secure, controlled environment throughout.

As a result, far more players successfully make it through the EDD process and continue to bet. In fact, by using ClearStake, Hollywoodbets has seen a 160% increase in players passing through EDD checks and remaining as active customers of the business.

The verdict

“ClearStake has transformed our compliance process and is a win/win for our business. It enables us to make decisions both quickly and accurately, so we retain more players than ever before. Most importantly, we are protecting those players who need it.”

Tyla Labuschagne, Compliance Manager at Hollywoodbets

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