News

Sunday, 25 July 2010 08:00

Disappointed Canadians who want to gamble online will have to wait until the British Columbia provincial government fixes its state run website. They just don't know how long.

Following the grand launch and subsequent collapse of its brand new, state run online casino and gambling website, PlayNow.com, the British Columbia provincial government is under pressure to repair the damage of which the massive costs have not yet even been estimated. Despite the mounting pressure, the government are taking a relaxed attitude top the whole thing, which is angering B.C. citizens whose personal details were compromised in the debacle as well as those who want to use the legal online gambling service.

The website, which is run by the province's own lottery commission, BCLC, was hailed as the way forward with regards to legalised online gambling and was the first to offer the service legally in North America. PlayNow.com opened following a massive $7.5 million facelift with an upgrade to the software and new casino games added to sweeten the pot. A promotional advertising campaign got the word out and had gamblers in the province eager to take advantage of a service that was not available elsewhere on the continent.

Less than a week after its launch, the website was closed down because of technical problems. At first, it was announced that the problems were caused by the sudden unexpectedly large volume of players accessing the website. However, on Friday it was announced that the real problems were due to security breaches that included 134 user accounts being violated and customer details being compromised. There were also reports of 12 players being able to gain access to the personal information belonging to other players.

A statement was made by Michael Graydon, CEO of BCLC that the delay in revealing the true nature of the shutdown was because the company's first priority was to their players by ensuring that they heard the news direct from BCLC rather than reading about it in a newspaper. The province went to great lengths to assure residents and prospective customers that it possessed sufficient experience to operate a gambling website without any outside help. Its major mistake was failing to take sufficient precautionary measures to prevent a security error of such severity from occurring.
 
As a result of the “data crossover malfunction,” as the technical problems were described, and the subsequent investigation into their causes, no date has yet been given for a re-opening of the website to B.C. customers.