What are contributing factors for suspicious activity alerts?
Contributing factors increase the Confidence Score when their criteria are met. On Active alerts, a higher score can decide whether an event is escalated to an alert.
Overview
Within alert generation, the alert engine evaluates transactions using a layered approach that includes the detection criteria, primary factors, contributing factors, and mitigating factors.
Activity is detected only when the detection criteria and primary factors are met. Contributing factors then increase the Confidence Score based on additional risk indicators. Because an event becomes an alert only when its final Confidence Score reaches the Escalation threshold, contributing factors can affect whether it is escalated. These factors help refine the Confidence Score and improve the system’s ability to assess whether a pattern of activity is truly suspicious.
For example, if a structuring pattern is detected and the player has a history of SARs filed for structuring, a contributing factor can increase the Confidence Score to reflect the higher likelihood of suspicious behavior.
You are not required to use contributing factors. For Active alerts, turn each factor on or off and set its weight under Contributing risk factors on the alert type's Risk assessment tab in Settings > Alerts (Beta).
How are Contributing Factors Calculated?
Each contributing factor has a weight that determines how much it increases the Confidence Score. The score increase is calculated based on the remaining points available to reach the maximum score of 100.
For example:
If the base Confidence Score from the primary factors is 85, there are 15 points remaining.
A contributing factor with a 50% weight will add 7.5 points (50% of 15), resulting in a total score of 92.5.
If multiple contributing factors are enabled and their criteria are met, each one adds points based on its weight, calculated from the same remaining points. For example, two factors with a 50% weight on a base score of 85 each add 7.5 points, for a total of 100.
This scoring approach ensures that the Confidence Score reflects the highest possible risk level before any mitigating factors are applied to reduce it.
Contributing Factors on Specific Alert Types
Cash - Denominations – A contributing factor on Active Structuring Inbound, Structuring Outbound, Minimal Play, WWC and UCS alerts. It looks for cash transactions in the bill denominations set in your alert settings.
High Risk Player – On Active High Risk Player alerts, every risk item with a value above 0 is listed as a contributing factor.