PlayNow.com, the province of British Columbia’s first venture into regulated online gambling is back online after a month fixing a technical glitch, and losses estimated at around Cdn5 million.
In a press conference Thursday, the British Columbia Lottery Corporation which operates the site for the provincial government declared that the security glitch, which opened up the personal information of some 134 players, had been detected and resolved, and the site again activated.
PlayNow was taken down shortly after its launch on July 15 when the technical flaw came to light
“It was really a series of unique events,” said Michael Graydon, president and CEO of BCLC, blaming the data crossover on a default setting in the new server software, combined with website “performance issues” and a high volume of traffic.
Graydon told reporters during a conference call that he is confident the publicly owned corporation will make up its losses “as we regain the confidence of our customers.”
The reactivation will be a relief to the 140,000 customers who have online accounts with PlayNow.com. They will again have access to their PlayNow accounts for the first time in 35 days. Customers had the option to have their accounts closed and a cheque refunded.