How DGGS Launched Germany's First Licensed Slots & Kept Chargebacks at 0.02%  1

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Glücksspiel operates JackpotPiraten and BingBong, two regulated German online slot brands. As Germany’s first licensed online slot operator under the Glücksspielstaatsvertrag, DGGS delivers secure, compliant gaming to a rapidly growing player base.

Founded: 2020 | Employees: ~13 | Customers: Several hundred thousand | With IDnow since: 2020

Gaming & Gambling, Automated Identity Verification, Age Verification

DGGS AT A GLANCE


GAMING & GAMBLING BERLIN, GERMANY

DGGS launched Germany’s first licensed online slot platform with IDnow’s automated identity verification solution embedded directly into its onboarding process. By automating age and identity checks, DGGS reduced verification times by up to 95%, prevented fraud before payment, maintained an industry-leading 0.02% chargeback rate, and scaled to over 100,000 annual verifications without increasing operational resources.

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Partnership Overview.

DGGS (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Glücksspiel) operates JackpotPiraten and BingBong, two of Germany’s regulated online slot brands. Since launching in June 2022 as Germany’s first licensed online slot operator under the Glücksspielstaatsvertrag (State Treaty on Gambling), DGGS has relied on IDnow as its identity verification partner from day one. With several hundred thousand registered players and a six-figure annual verification volume, IDnow’s automated platform sits at the heart of DGGS’s compliant onboarding, running silently in the background, scaling with the business, and keeping fraud firmly in check. 

Challenges.

Navigating One of Europe’s Most Complex Regulatory Environments 

Launching as a licensed iGaming operator in Germany is not for the faint-hearted. The Glücksspielstaatsvertrag imposes a layered set of requirements with no real equivalent elsewhere in Europe: 

  • LUGAS – a centralised deposit-tracking database spanning all licensed operators, enforcing combined spending limits across providers 
  • OASIS – a national self-exclusion register that operators must check in real time 
  • €1 stake limit – a maximum bet per spin applying across the board 
  • KJM verification – a requirement that identity verification procedures be certified by Germany’s Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media 
     

For Florian Werner, Managing Director at DGGS, the initial challenge was simply the sheer volume of regulation to absorb and understand. “When we first read through the regulation for German online gambling, we thought: ‘Oh my God, there are so many rules.” The founding team – just three people at the outset – spent hours each day reading the law aloud in a circle, taking notes, decoding cross-references. What gradually became clear was that compliant player onboarding boiled down to three essentials: confirming a player is over 18, confirming they are physically present in Germany, and confirming they are exactly who they say they are. 

The operational challenge was equally real. As Jennifer Meschwitz, Team Leader in Customer Service, explains: “What makes daily verification complicated is [to ensure] that all information is correct, that documents are not damaged – because we are not allowed to accept them for regulatory reasons, and that the person behind the player profile is actually the one who entered the information into the system.” 

The bigger strategic question, though, was finding a verification provider already recognised by German authorities, one whose KJM-certified process would hold up to regulatory scrutiny from day one, without DGGS having to validate the technology itself. 

Why IDnow.

DGGS did not inherit a legacy verification system. There was no incumbent provider to replace, no manual process to digitise. The founding team designed their compliance framework around IDnow from the very start. IDnow wasn’t an afterthought. It was built into the compliance framework from the ground up. 

Several factors made IDnow the clear choice: 

How DGGS Launched Germany's First Licensed Slots & Kept Chargebacks at 0.02%  3

IDnow supports gaming operators in Germany as well as across multiple regulated markets, including the UK (UKGC), Isle of Man, Gibraltar or Malta (MGA)

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Already visible and trusted across the German digital services landscape, giving both DGGS and its players immediate confidence

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Critical for a regulated German operator under GDPR and gambling authority oversight 

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German-speaking contacts, professional team availability, and a secure, proven verification process

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No need to renegotiate or re-provision as the player base grows

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The solution.

IDnow’s automated identity verification solution, combining AI-powered document checksbiometric face matching and liveness detection, is integrated directly into the DGGS player registration flow. The integration is deeply embedded via API: once a player is verified, IDnow automatically updates their profile in the DGGS back office, meaning the customer support team never has to step in to complete or confirm the process. Verification happens, the profile is updated, and the player is ready to play without any manual input needed. 

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For us in customer service, the biggest advantages were that verification is much faster, that we have fewer documents in the upload that we have to process manually, that it can be ensured that the documents are secure and lawful, and that everything runs in a regulated and proper manner.

Jennifer Meschwitz, Team Leader Customer Service at DGGS

The service launched in June 2022. Within minutes of going live and with immediate press attention driving a surge of new registrations, the first player in Germany’s newly regulated online slot market was verified through IDnow. It worked without a hitch. 

Key capabilities delivered: 

  • Average 90 seconds player verification – frictionless experience, quick enough to make onboarding feel invisible 
  • 24/7 automated verification – players can be verified at any hour, with no dependency on DGGS staffing levels 
  • Seamless back-office integration – IDnow directly writes verified status into DGGS player profiles 
  • KJM-compliant age and identity confirmation – meeting LUGAS, OASIS and German regulatory requirements 
  • Fraud and duplicate account prevention – automated detection of bonus abuse, underage players, identity fraud and AML-related risk 
  • Invisible scalability – the service scales automatically alongside player growth; DGGS never needs to contact IDnow or provision additional resource 

The Results.

An industry-leading chargeback rate. 

DGGS’s chargeback rate stands at just 0.02% because fraudulent and high-risk users are identified and stopped during the verification process, before they ever reach payment. The result is minimal financial exposure and very low payment transfer costs. “Our chargeback rate is extremely low. It’s currently only 0.02%. With that, we manage to keep our payment processing very low,” says Florian Werner. 

Fraud dramatically contained. 

The types of fraud common in iGaming like bonus abuse, player protection terms circumvention, underage players, money laundering attempts are precisely the cases IDnow’s verification is designed to catch. 

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When we launched in the German market, we expected problems like duplicate accounts, fraud cases, money laundering, or circumvention of player protection rules. All of this occurred only to a minimal extent and much less than we thought, because with serious customer verification, these problems are as good as eliminated.

Florian Werner, Managing Director, DGGS

90 seconds per verification. 

As Florian Werner puts it: “Everyone in our industry thinks you have to choose: fast onboarding or secure verification. That’s what we were told. The truth is, you can have both.” Where a manual verification normally takes up to 20 minutes per case, IDnow completes the same process in 90 seconds – a reduction of up to 95%, so players reach the platform faster.

Manual effort virtually eliminated.

Jennifer Meschwitz and her team now handle only genuine edge cases: damaged or expired documents, non-EU nationals requiring additional checks or suspected fraud. Everything standard is handled by IDnow – automatically, accurately and around the clock. “It’s kind of refreshing not to have to control something that often,” she laughs.

A platform built to grow.

As DGGS scales its marketing and expands its player base, the verification infrastructure simply follows, automatically. “We don’t need to speak with IDnow. It just scales up. If we scale, everything happens automatically,” enthuses Jennifer Meschwitz.

IDnow: The Invisible Partner.

Perhaps the most telling endorsement of IDnow’s performance is how rarely DGGS thinks about it. 

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The best description for IDnow is that it is practically invisible to us. It works silently and reliably in the background, and that is a very good thing.

Florian Werner, Managing Director, DGGS

For Jennifer and the customer support team, the experience mirrors this: players accept the verification process, feel safe going through it and never raise it as a source of friction or complaint. IDnow simply works – around the clock, without fanfare, without failure. 

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It has been working reliably, smoothly, and stably for us since day one, and that’s the best you can say about a verification provider.

Florian Werner, Managing Director, DGGS

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