KYC (Know Your Customer)

KYC is the process of verifying who you are. Licensed gambling operators are legally required to do it, under anti-money-laundering rules and gambling licence conditions.

What is requested

Identity: passport, driving licence or national ID card.

Address: a utility bill, bank statement or council tax bill, usually dated within three months.

Payment method: a card image with most digits obscured, or an e-wallet screenshot, confirming the account belongs to you.

Source of funds: for larger amounts, evidence of where the money came from. This shades into an affordability check.

The timing problem

Most operators defer full verification until your first withdrawal request rather than at registration.

The consequence is predictable and frustrating: you deposit and play without friction, and the first time anyone asks who you are is the moment you want your money back. Any problem, a name mismatch, an unclear document, an unsupported address format. Then surfaces at the worst possible point.

Verify at registration if the operator allows it. It takes a few minutes and removes the single most common cause of withdrawal delay.

The UK now requires age and identity verification before deposits, which has largely eliminated this pattern in that market. Elsewhere it remains standard.

Why the delay is not arbitrary

Operators face serious penalties for failures here, and the obligations are genuine: preventing underage gambling, preventing money laundering, enforcing self-exclusion, and confirming that withdrawals go to the right person.

That said, deferring verification until withdrawal is an operator choice, not a legal requirement, and it is a choice that happens to keep money in the account longer.

Common failure points

• Name mismatch between account, ID and payment method, by far the most frequent
• Expired documents
• Address not matching, including abbreviations and missing flat numbers
• Third-party payment methods, which are prohibited essentially everywhere
• Poor image quality: corners cut off, glare, unreadable text

An unverified account is a risk

Until verification is complete, funds are not reliably accessible. If verification later fails, for example because the account was registered with inaccurate details. The balance may be frozen and the account closed.

Registering with accurate details from the start is not a formality.