Next-Generation Anti Money Laundering at Novomatic

Client Profile

Novomatic Italia is the Italian subsidiary of Austrian group NOVOMATIC AG, among the world’s largest producers and operators of gaming technologies, active in approximately 100 countries with nearly 25,000 employees.

Present in Italy since 2007 under the name Novomatic Italia, the company employs approximately 4,000 people, with headquarters in Rome and main hubs in Rimini, Bolzano, Busto Arsizio, Imola, and various local offices throughout the country.

In 2022, Novomatic acquired 80% of HBG Gaming, consolidating the operation in 2024 with the merger of HBG Connex into ADMIRAL Gaming Network, creating the “new AGN” which now controls HBG Entertainment and HBG Online Gaming.

Currently one of Italy’s largest multi-concession operators with a retail network of nearly 1,000 points of sale including Admiral Club branded halls and bingo halls, as well as indirectly managed bars, tobacco shops, and third-party halls, served by ADMIRAL Gaming Network and former HBG companies.

The Problem

The specificity and complexity of the regulated Italian Public Gaming business make anti-money laundering compliance processes particularly critical.

The extensive sales network and the high heterogeneity of governance models across locations, between direct and indirect management, further increases the complexity and criticality of processes related to AML compliance.

Even before the acquisitions that drove rapid territorial growth, Novomatic had adopted an AML platform based on our solution, which had been customized and integrated with the corporate information system.

Extending the product to the new, much more heterogeneous network characterized by significant indirect management presence, with the consequent need to train third-party personnel on procedures and systems, necessitated a platform revision focused on greater operational control while simultaneously meeting two different requirements:

1. On one hand, it was necessary to reduce operator discretion during customer identification procedures and tracking of collections and winnings, to minimize the probability of errors or evasive behaviors;

2. On the other hand, it was essential to facilitate and speed up new personnel onboarding to application use, making the case compilation procedure more intuitive and guided.

The Solution

Starting in 2024, together with Novomatic’s Anti-Money Laundering Function staff and key users expert in operational dynamics within retail locations, we subjected the entire user interface of our product’s mobile components to a thorough revision.

AI and OCR Technologies

A determining factor was the use of AI and OCR technologies, based on Azure Document Intelligence services and the development of custom AI models, specifically trained to recognize the different formats of gaming tickets issued by Betting, Bingo, and VLT systems present in the halls.

New Android App

The result was the development of a new Android tablet app, featuring an interface fully compliant with Google’s Material 3 standard, implementing a flexible and intuitive wizard that is simultaneously extremely rigorous in its controls.

This enabled halving case compilation times and eliminating the most common errors that caused case rejections by the Concessionaire’s first-level control structure.

Intelligent Attachment Acquisition

Thanks to new features and a new services layer developed on back-end server components, attachment acquisition (front and back photos of ID documents, health cards, and gaming tickets) was transformed from a tedious operation impacting case compilation times to a fast operation capable of streamlining the entire acquisition process.

Next-Generation UX

The use of cutting-edge development technologies and frameworks enabled the creation of a particularly ergonomic UI conforming to the typical user experience of native Android applications, appearing intuitive and natural to most new users.

Prevention Instead of Correction

Many control mechanisms and alerts present in the previous app version were eliminated and converted to preventive adaptive actions.

In the previous UI, if an operator entered data for a minor, the system would block procedure advancement with a warning, and the operator could not proceed to the next screen without first correcting the problem. Every mandatory field had to be entered before proceeding through the data collection screen sequence.

The new interface simply makes it impossible to enter incorrect, inconsistent, or rule-violating data.

Calendar-style date selectors are automatically set to enter birth dates starting exactly 18 years prior, tax codes for minors are automatically rejected, each screen allows free navigation forward or backward in the wizard sequence, but case submission features only become enabled when all mandatory fields have been entered.

Operational Flexibility

If a player realizes they don’t have their document or required data with them, the operator can continue entering gaming ticket data or available information while the player retrieves their wallet from the hall’s cloakroom.

Document photo acquisition is one of the first steps required by the procedure: through intelligent OCR recognition, most of the data required by the procedure will already be pre-filled, reducing subsequent steps to simple data reading and verification.

AI-Powered Back Office

Similarly, on the back office side, AI analyzes newly entered cases and provides quick, concise guidance to first-level back office operators.

Case lists are reordered by estimated attention levels. Many controls can be performed while the player is still in the hall, making it possible to correct anomalies in real-time.

Results

The effect of releasing version 2.0 features into production was to eliminate anomalies and drastically reduce processing times for cases both at retail locations and in back office processes.