How Dabble Reduced Chargebacks While Improving Customer Experience with Riskified

The daily fantasy and sports betting platform cut chargeback costs by over 80% while increasing approval rates, enabling smoother payments and a better experience for customers in the US, UK, and Australia

Dabble, a leading daily fantasy and sports betting platform operating in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, has partnered with Riskified to reduce fraud-related losses and improve the customer deposit experience. The company’s US expansion in 2023 brought in more than 500,000 signups within the first six months, highlighting the importance of a seamless deposit experience for both customers and business growth.

When Dabble launched in the US, the company quickly discovered that the fraud landscape differed from its home markets. Rules that were effective in Australia proved ineffective against new, region-specific fraud patterns and payment methods. Fragmented issuer support meant lower adoption of 3DS authentication and an increase in “friendly fraud” patterns.

As a result, Dabble’s chargeback rate exceeded 1%, putting the company at risk for card network monitoring programs and costly penalties. Initial attempts to control fraud through strict blocking rules backfired, preventing legitimate customers from depositing, lowering approval rates, and impacting revenue during peak periods, such as the NFL season. Managing up to 300 weekly dispute reviews fell to Dabble’s customer operations staff, limiting their ability to focus on growth and customer experience.

“When we launched in the US, we quickly found that our rules-based fraud system from Australia needed additional measures. It is a very different market, and we needed to strike a better balance,” said Anthony Cugnetto, Head of Product, at Dabble.

Dabble turned to Riskified for its chargeback guarantee solution. By shifting fraud-related chargeback liability to Riskified, the company relieved its internal teams of operational burdens and gained the ability to focus on delivering a smooth customer experience. The platform integrated directly with Dabble’s technology stack, allowing the company to ease restrictive hard-block rules and rely on Riskified’s machine learning to evaluate more legitimate transactions. 

Riskified’s machine learning models quickly adapted to the unique transaction patterns of fantasy sports, such as multiple small deposits in rapid succession during games. This enabled accurate, unobtrusive fraud checks that increased approval rates without blocking legitimate bettors.

Since going live with Riskified, Dabble has reduced chargeback rates from over 1% to 0.19%, representing an 81% decrease, while increasing overall approval rates and optimizing 3DS usage, helping the company safeguard revenue and enhance the customer experience across all markets.

For the full case study