Bookmakers hit by global computer outage
Betting giants Tabcorp and Sportsbet were among hundreds of major businesses in Australia impacted by a global IT outage which affected millions of people around the world.
At approximately 3pm on Friday, betting with TAB came to a complete standstill both online and in retail, with Sportsbet also experiencing issues with its online offering. The issues also hit global betting behemoth Ladbrokes.
The outage saw the finalisation of TAB tote prices come to a stop, causing issues with payouts for bets already placed and also corporate bookmakers who offer tote-related products.
Tabcorp, who along with Sportsbet are responsible for more than 70 per cent of Australia’s wagering market share, said in a statement: “There is a global external technical issue impacting our services. Betting is temporarily unavailable. We’re working hard to get things back on track.”
Following the outage, Sportsbet issued a statement which read: “Like many organisations, global issues affecting Windows and Crowdstrike are disrupting some of our services. This means many of our betting services are unavailable. We are working to resolve this as soon as possible.”
By the evening both firms were said to be close to fixing the services that had been impacted with Sportsbets’ markets for Friday night racing and sport back in place, while other markets were also close to being sorted. The TAB was working on restoring its fixed odds markets.
In a statement released on Friday, George Kurtz, the chief executive of cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, said the IT outage had been caused by a software update and was not the result of a cyberattack.
Kurtz said: “Crowdstrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyber attack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.
“We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organisations ensure they’re communicating with Crowdstrike representatives through official channels.
“Our team is fully mobilised to ensure the security and stability of Crowdstrike customers.”
The worldwide problem emerged in a piecemeal fashion, with first reports coming out of Australia where payment systems went down at stores including Woolworths, while financial institutions such as the National Australia Bank were also affected.
Website Downdetector also listed outages for Foxtel, Bendigo Bank, Suncorp Bank, Commonwealth Bank, and Me Bank, amongst others.
Telecommunications company Telstra said “the issue is causing some hold ups for some of our customers” while Sydney Airport was hit with uncertainty after departure screens went blank and at least one airline announcing they were unable to check passengers in.
In New Zealand, Christchurch International Airport said it was experiencing IT issues across a number of systems, while a spokesman for New Zealand’s parliament said their computer network was also impacted.