Geolocation can locate a gambler to within 5 feet, says Locaid

Talking to GamingWatch this week, geolocation company Locaid’s CEO Rip Gerber said that the technology his San Francisco-based company supplies is spoof proof and can locate the position of a punter to within 5 feet.

The company has applied for online service provider licensing in Delaware, New Jersey and Nevada, all states that have embraced the intrastate online gambling revolution.

Gerber stressed that the ability for online gambling sites to accurately verify a player’s location is vital to their business. If a player cannot gamble in their current location, but it is not verified, the online gambling site will lose credibility with regulators and could see costs increase.

“The location data we provide is the only one that can’t be spoofed. In cities with concentrated towers, it can get to within 5-feet accuracy range,” Gerber boasted.

Locaid’s geo-tracking technology is spoof proof because it relies on multiple methods for verifying a user’s location. One of those methods is triangulation where it gets a fix on a cell phone by figuring out where it is relative to other cell phone towers in the area.

Locaid checks the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the user and also checks with a Wi-Fi service provider about the location of a user on its network. If the results of all of these methods correspond to the same geographical data and thus verify that the user is within a state where online gambling is legal, then it sends a message to the provider confirming that it’s safe to offer gambling services to that player.

Locaid already provides geofencing applications for lottery services, banks, fleet trackers and other companies.