Definition
Prohibited industries are business sectors that Debitura excludes from its debt collection platform. Clients operating primarily in a prohibited industry cannot submit cases through Debitura. The restriction applies to the creditor's primary business activity, not to companies that incidentally serve some clients in these sectors.
The five prohibited industry categories
1. Gambling and online gaming
Businesses whose primary revenue comes from games of chance, betting, or wagering activities where participants risk money for potential winnings.
Prohibited examples: online and physical casinos, sports betting platforms, poker rooms, lottery services, fantasy sports with monetary stakes, gambling software or platform providers, gaming payment processors.
Acceptable examples: video game publishers, where the games carry no gambling mechanics. The screening prompt names no further acceptable activities for this category.
2. Cryptocurrency and digital assets
Businesses whose primary operations involve cryptocurrency trading, blockchain-based digital assets, decentralized finance (DeFi), or token-based economies.
Prohibited examples: cryptocurrency exchanges (centralized and decentralized), NFT marketplaces and platforms, DeFi protocols and platforms, cryptocurrency mining operations, ICO/IDO projects, crypto wallet providers, token issuers and blockchain projects, and Web3 gaming with cryptocurrency or token rewards.
Acceptable examples: blockchain consulting for enterprise, where the work is a non-crypto application; and education companies, academies, bootcamps and training providers teaching blockchain, cryptocurrency or Web3 - where the debt you are collecting is tuition or course fees rather than payment for a crypto service. Course materials mentioning these topics do not on their own make a business a crypto business. The condition is what the debt is for: a blockchain development firm chasing payment for crypto services is screened as a crypto business, whatever it teaches on the side.
3. Multi-level marketing (MLM) / network marketing
Businesses using compensation structures where participants earn commissions both from direct sales and from recruiting other sellers, creating hierarchical distributor networks.
Prohibited examples: direct sales companies with multi-level compensation structures, network marketing organizations with pyramid structures, businesses based on independent distributors or consultants, and businesses where recruitment is tied to compensation.
Acceptable examples: the screening prompt defines none for this category. A business is judged on the definition above - whether participants earn commissions both from direct sales and from recruiting other sellers - not against a list of permitted models.
4. Adult entertainment and content
Businesses whose primary offering involves sexually explicit material, adult entertainment services, or age-restricted content of a sexual nature.
Prohibited examples: pornography production or distribution, adult content subscription platforms, adult webcam and streaming services, strip clubs and adult entertainment venues, escort services, and agencies primarily managing adult content creators.
Acceptable examples: the screening prompt defines none for this category either. The test is whether sexually explicit material, adult entertainment services or age-restricted content of a sexual nature is the primary offering.
5. Predatory "make money" programs
High-ticket programs - $2,000 and above - whose primary product is the promise of wealth or financial freedom rather than a concrete, verifiable skill.
Prohibited examples: recursive course-reselling models, get-rich mentorship, trading signals sold as education, "done-for-you" business packages, AI-generated influencer-monetization schemes, dropshipping systems, affiliate-marketing blueprints sold as courses.
Expressly excluded from this category: legitimate professional education and skills training, coaching or consulting with concrete deliverables, trade and profession courses, educational SaaS, and any programme teaching a skill that stands on its own rather than on reselling the programme. The test is what is being sold - learning a specific skill, or the promise of making money. An education label does not settle it in either direction.
How screening works
Prohibited industry screening is automated as part of the invoice qualification process. It determines whether the creditor's business matches a prohibited industry, and it does not always need to open a document to do it.
The screening process follows these steps:
Debitura's existing creditor-assessment data is checked first. Screening can reach a conclusion here and stop, without analysing any uploaded file.
Where the analysis does run, uploaded invoice PDFs and documents are examined for company branding, service descriptions, terms and conditions, website URLs, business registration details, and industry-specific terminology. Creditor intelligence is weighed alongside them and can be the stronger of the two.
Case metadata (company name, claim description, debtor information) is used as supporting context.
The system determines whether the business matches one of the five prohibited industries and assigns a confidence level (high, medium, or low).
Because step 1 can settle it on its own, a determination is not always explained by the documents attached to the case.
Screening statuses
Status | Meaning | What happens next |
APPROVED | No prohibited industry indicators detected. | Case proceeds normally through automated validation. No blocking or manual review required. |
FLAGGED | High-confidence prohibited industry match. | Automatic case approval is blocked. Case is held for Debitura admin review. Admin can override if the flag was incorrect. |
REVIEW_REQUIRED | Uncertain determination (medium or low confidence). | The case passes this check and continues through automated validation. No admin hold is placed on it. |
What happens when a case is flagged
The case remains in a pending verification state and automatic approval is blocked.
Debitura staff are notified of the flagged case.
An admin reviews the screening result - its confidence level and its written rationale - alongside the case itself.
The admin makes a final decision: approve the case (if the screening was incorrect) or decline the case with an explanation to the creditor.
What the screening result itself carries is a confidence level and a written rationale. It does not hand the admin a structured list of matched industries, quoted document excerpts or flagged keywords, so an admin who needs to see the underlying wording opens the uploaded documents.
Fail-safe design
If the AI file analysis behind the screening cannot be completed, the case is not waved through: the check returns a manual-review result and a Debitura admin looks at the case before it can be approved automatically. The same happens where semantic-integrity enforcement is switched on and a result fails its integrity checks - it goes to internal review before its status label is acted on at all. Uncertain matches (REVIEW_REQUIRED) work the other way round: where the result is usable, they pass the check and the case continues. Debitura admins can approve a case that was flagged incorrectly.
Key distinction: primary business vs. incidental exposure
The screening targets companies whose primary and predominant business model operates in a prohibited industry. Companies that incidentally serve some clients in prohibited sectors are not flagged. For example, a SaaS platform serving multiple industries (including some prohibited sectors), a payment processor handling diverse merchants, or a marketing agency providing services across sectors would typically be approved.
Impact by actor
Client: Clients whose primary business falls into a prohibited industry category cannot submit cases through Debitura. Clients in acceptable industries are not affected by this screening. If a case is incorrectly flagged, Debitura admin review can override the determination.
Collection Partner: Screening runs before case assignment, so a high-confidence prohibited-industry match is held for Debitura admin review rather than assigned to a partner. It is not a guarantee that nothing from these industries ever reaches a partner: an uncertain result passes the check and the case continues, and an admin can approve a case the screening flagged incorrectly.
Debitura: Debitura administers the screening process and performs manual review when cases are flagged, and when the file analysis behind the screening could not be completed.
Related pages
Case eligibility - full eligibility checklist including prohibited industries, minimum amounts, and documentation requirements.