Gambling is the industry in Canada that is most susceptible to digital fraud attempts, and that activity has risen sharply over the last year.

Those are some key findings of a new report from TransUnion Canada that looked at digital fraud in numerous industries across the country in the first half of 2024.

The report found that gambling, including online sports betting and poker, saw proportionally more suspected online fraud attempts than any other sector in Canada, with a rate of 9.6%. That was just ahead of retail, at 9.2%, and government services, at 7.7%.

It’s particularly interesting to compare Canadian gambling’s results with the industry in other countries.

Across the 19 markets where it provided country and regional breakdowns, TransUnion noted that the average rate of suspected digital fraud attempts within the gambling industry was 7.2%, which actually represented a 9.2% decline between H1 2023 and H1 2024. The average rate across all monitored industries and jurisdictions also declined, albeit by a smaller amount. Overall, gambling was more susceptible than the average industry rate (5.2%).

In stark contrast, the rate found within Canadian-specific gambling soared 79.3% year-over-year, the second-biggest increase of any Canadian industry monitored by TransUnion.

However, even Canadian gambling’s above-average suspected fraud rate was significantly below that of the U.S., where it was as high as 13.3%.

“Protecting customers and their businesses from fraud is essential to enabling safe and tailored consumer experiences,” wrote TransUnion Canada Head of Identity Management and Fraud Solutions Patrick Boudreau. “These findings reveal that despite the good-faith efforts that are being undertaken by companies to identify and prevent fraud to date, fraudsters continue to evolve and it’s vital that fraud prevention methods keep up with the changing times.”

He urged businesses including gambling companies to take advantage of fraud prevention technologies such as identity verification, IP intelligence, device reputation and synthetic identity detection and make them “critical components” of their fraud prevention programs.

TransUnion’s methodology consisted of blending proprietary insights from its global intelligence network with a specially commissioned TransUnion business survey in Canada, India, the U.K. and the U.S., and a specially commissioned consumer survey in 18 countries and regions globally.