A Technical Guide to Handling Chargebacks in the Igaming Industry 2026
Dealing with chargebacks within the iGaming industry is often high-stakes. From involuntary reversals of deposits to malicious stolen card fraud, it’s a high-risk industry.
With that being said, a technical approach can help focus on leveraging data, automated compliance tools, and AI. It’s a great way of preventing disputes and maximizing dispute win rates.
This guide will take a look at the technical efforts that can be made to handle chargebacks within the igaming industry, especially if you’re responsible for the management or ownership of one.
Read More: 40+ Best Android Themes – Best Theme For Android
1. Technical prevention measures
In order to handle a chargeback, you’ll want to stop it before it reaches the cardholder’s bank. Therefore, having 3D Secure 2.2/2.3 implemented is essential when requiring strong authentication and transferring liability for any fraud-related chargebacks from the operator to the card issuer.
It’s also helpful to implement AI-powered behavioral analytics that help to flag any irregular activity that may seem suspicious. From immediate maximum-amount deposits to rapid withdrawals and mismatched geolocations.
For your technical teams responsible, they must ensure billing descriptors are clear, that they’re recognizable, and also include the brand name. This helps to reduce friendly fraud caused by users who don’t recognize the charge on their bank account.
There’s now advanced technology like device fingerprinting and IP mapping to help identify serial fraudsters, creating multiple accounts for bonus abuse. With that, real-time alerts that are API-based are a great way to implement preventative measures.
2. Evidence gathering and retention
If a chargeback is likely to occur, then a strong and data-driven rebuttal is crucial. It’s helpful for evidence gathering to compile the following data points.
- KYC/AML documentation
- Detailed transaction logs
- In-game activity data
- Clear terms and conditions acceptance
- Digital goods consumption logs
3. Leveraging compelling evidence
It’s helpful to leverage compelling evidence using Visa’s CE 3.0 rules. Operators can win fraud disputes without actually having to interact with the cardholder if they’re able to provide two non-disputed prior transactions.
You’ll also need to provide common elements between them, such as the same IP address, email address, and device ID.
4. Technical workflow automation
To handle chargebacks in igaming, technical workflow automation is essential. Such workflow automation includes:
Automated rebuttals
Using AI-driven tools to automatically compile evidence packets, as well as generating tailored rebuttals, is helpful to speed up processes.
Velocity checks
Look at setting automated rules to help block accounts that trigger more than a set number of deposits within a short timeframe.
Negative balance management
Upon receiving a chargeback, the system should be able to automatically place a negative balance on the user’s account. This should also trigger an immediate ban that prevents the user from exploiting the service once again.
5. Best practices for high-risk monitoring
There are a number of best practices for high-risk monitoring. For example, make sure to maintain chargeback ratios below the threshold to avoid being labeled excessively high-risk as a merchant.
Be sure to analyze reason codes, reviewing them to identify systemic issues like a glitching payment getaway.
