Cyber Hackers Shut Down Oregon Sports Betting

In what could be a common nuisance for sports betting operators, the Oregon Lottery became victims of a cyberattack from hackers that caused the suspension of the state’s sports betting app called Scoreboard.

SBTech, the contractor that operates and runs Scoreboard for the Oregon Lottery, sent out an email to customers alerting them to the breach.

SBTech “brought its systems offline as a precautionary measure in response to a cyberattack—suspending play on Scoreboard and other online sportsbooks using the platform,” the company writes in the March 30th email. “We have no reports of unauthorized disclosure or extraction of player data or account balances.”

Source: wweek.com 

Requests by customers and outside media about when SBTech shut down the software went unanswered but the company’s email states that the suspension came over the weekend.

The Oregon Lottery has come under scrutiny and criticism over Scoreboard in recent weeks due to the coronavirus outbreak as the group turned off all of their operating video poker machines due to the closures of restaurants and bars.

To compound the loss of revenue from the inactivity of the poker machines, the Scoreboard app has essentially been non-operational since sports were suspended around the United States earlier last month. Lottery officials admitted publicly that the betting app has been an underwhelming revenue generator, actually losing money since its launch.

Oregon Lottery’s Troubled History with Scoreboard App

Last month, the Scoreboard app began to show its wounds as officials warned that the app needed time to bring in a profit. Lottery Director Barry Pack told the Board of Commissioners that a variety of logistical issues were going to cause an upfront loss of roughly $5.3 million over the app’s first nine months of operation.

“We started this whole process acknowledging that launching a new sales channel and a new product would take time to get to profitability,” Pack told the Commissioners. “So, there is no big surprise here that we aren’t at profitability at four months. We did a three-year forecast because we weren’t sure exactly where in that first three years we’d hit profitability.”

Source: casino.org

Pack told the assembled group that the startup of the app experienced unforeseen costs and a reduced volume of bets as bettors waited to see if the software would work over the first few weeks of operation.

Bettors in Oregon have also turned away from the Scoreboard app due to less than favorable betting odds and the complete lack of college sports offerings as the state has outlawed wagering on amateur events.

Pack acknowledged that the early deficit and weak revenue numbers could reverse if the state included college sports on Scoreboard.

“The availability of collegiate wagering is still up in the air, and so we’re not able to put that into any of the forecasts, which would bring that margin up fairly substantially because of the interest in college sports and the fact that we could turn it on with really no costs,” he said.

Until sports returns in the United States, there is little reason for SBTech to rush back Scoreboard, allowing them time to find out how the hackers breached the system and create a plan to implement college sports to boost the revenue of the app.

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