Vancouver — The Canadian Press Published on Tuesday, Jul. 20, 2010 3:16PM EDT Some gamblers were able to play with other people’s money, B.C. Lottery Corp. says
The B.C. Lottery Corporation is blaming the success of its online gambling website for a glitch that exposed the personal information of dozens of users. The Crown corporation added casino-style games such as blackjack and poker to its PlayNow.com site last week, and the service soon crashed as users choked the company's servers. B.C. Lotteries says the increased load on the servers caused some virtual gamblers to be able to access the accounts of others, and see their personal information. It says about 130 users were affected, and it has identified 12 cases in which a user actually viewed the personal information of someone else. The users were each notified and any incorrect charges to their accounts have been fixed. The corporation says it's working with the province's privacy commissioner to respond to the breach, although it says an investigation uncovered no evidence of hacking.
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See also: Province Story B.C. Lottery Corp. fined for allowing security breaches by money-launderers
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Online gamblers get mixed signals Tom Fletch
er - BC Local News Published: July 20, 2010 12:00 PM
B.C. Lottery Corporation's new online casino remained shut down for a fifth day Tuesday, after player accounts were mixed up when the website went live with a gambling limit of $10,000 a week. The Crown corporation issued a statement Tuesday describing a "data crossover" that caused some players to log on and get another registered player's account. The glitch affected 134 accounts, and BCLC said a dozen of them had personal information such as names and account balances viewed by someone else before the site was shut down for repairs. The website PlayNow.com had 135,000 registered users who were using it to play lotteries and games online up to last week. On July 16 it relaunched as North America's first regulated online casino, open only to registered players with Internet access within B.C. and a dramatically increased playing limit. BCLC said it is working with the province's Information and Privacy Commissioner to protect player accounts and testing software solutions to the problem. It insisted the problem was triggered by a rush of interest in new online casino games, after existing customers were joined by 150 new registrants before the shutdown. "BCLC's assessment, verified by third party security experts, shows no evidence of external interference or 'hacking'," the statement said.
NDP critic Shane Simpson wrote to Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman on Tuesday, demanding an explanation for reports that BCLC has been fined $670,000 by a federal regulator for failing to report cash transactions of $10,000 or more. BCLC chief executive Michael Graydon told Global TV Tuesday the fines were the result of clerical errors in the filing of financial reports. He said the fines are being appealed with FINTRAC, the financial analysis centre set up by Ottawa to search for money laundering, terrorist financing and other illegal transactions.
Coleman approved the new PlayNow online casino this spring, to allow BCLC to compete with online casinos that have rapidly taken a large market share from gamblers in recent years. Coleman argued that it is better for a play
Related Postings from May 21 2008 : http://vernonblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/suspected-money-laundering-at-casinos.html
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