What are the common pitfalls in PHP coding for online game management systems?

One common pitfall in PHP coding for online game management systems is not properly sanitizing user input, leaving the system vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. To prevent this, always use prepared statements when interacting with a database to escape user input and avoid potential security risks.

// Example of using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');
$stmt->execute(['username' => $username]);
$user = $stmt->fetch();