Major poker sites under DDoS attack

In the recent days, leading online poker operators, PokerStars, Partypoker and Americas Cardroom all suffered from serious attacks by unknown parties.

Partypoker [3] and PokerStars are the two biggest online poker sites, both serving tens of thousand players from all around the world, at a time. In both cases, the attacks targeted their .com offerings, with the biggest player pools.

The attack against Partypoker [3] began on August 9 and continued into August 11 or 12, with massive data requests targeting its servers. The site confirmed the DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks and informed its players via its social media channels. They later released a statement regarding the case:

“Our team worked hard to try to resolve the key issues. As poker players ourselves, we fully understand how frustrating it can be when an online poker room suffers technical issues, and we fully appreciate the considerable patience and understanding shown by our players in light of these difficulties.”

[4]

Managing Director Tom Waters issued an apology on Partypoker blog later: “The unfortunate events of 9 August were understandably frustrating for our players. After consideration, the decision was taken to pause and then subsequently cancel all affected tournaments. Our team worked hard to try to resolve the key issues,”

“As poker players ourselves, we fully understand how frustrating it can be when an online poker room suffers technical issues, and we fully appreciate the considerable patience and understanding shown by our players in light of these difficulties,”

A few days later - started on August 12 - the biggest competitor of Partypoker's also had the face the same issues.

PokerStars first experienced a large-scale disruption in their Sunday tournament offerings, where only players from a handful of countries were able to connect to their servers, while most of the customers were disconnected - resulting in a major backlash from the community. Sunday tournament cancellations were followed by a second attack on Monday.

PokerStars informed their players on Twitter.

We are currently experiencing a large volume of disconnections. All tournaments have been paused and will be cancelled or rolled forwards according to the formulas listed here: https://t.co/r2mtIaOEmh [5]. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.

— PokerStars (@PokerStars) 2018. augusztus 13. [6]

Americas Cardroom, an infamous US-facing operator also experienced the same attacks and still suffers from technical issues since then.

Our techs are working on the issues that are experiencing some players. This is not something affecting all the players, if you are having the "checking for protocol" issue please contact our CS department via live chat for assistance.

— Americas Cardroom (@ACR_POKER) 2018. augusztus 12. [7]

Famous poker pro turned Youtuber, Joe Ingram also released a video about the attacks:

 
Attacks of this caliber against poker rooms have been unprecedented up until the recent days.