BetOnline Website Down – Under Cyber Attack

Update Sunday, 10:50pm EST on 10/18/20 – SportsBetting.ag and BetOnline.ag are both up and running. Customers report being able to log-in and wager.

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Below you can see the previous updates and news as it unfolded.

Update Sunday, 1:50pm EST on 10/18/20 – BetOnline website appears to be up and running. Customers are able to log in and wager. Sportsbetting.ag is still offline.

Update Sunday, 10/18/20 at 12 NOON EST – The BetOnline and SportsBetting websites are still down. A Tweet they just posted says that they expect to be back later today. Many people are wondering what will happen to the contests this week. Some people were able to get their picks in while others were not. We have not had a direct response from BetOnline on the matter but word on the street is that this week will be a wash, meaning that no picks will count for the contests this week. But, any non-contest bets already placed will be graded and awarded or deducted accordingly.

This is no doubt a catastrophe for one of the internet’s top U.S. facing online sportsbooks. There is no telling how much this weekend’s lost action will cost them in the end. They didn’t and shouldn’t pay the hacker’s ransom demands because that cannot guarantee they won’t attack again and it also encourages other would-be attackers.

UPDATE: Saturday, 10/17/20 at 9:05pm EST – BetOnline now has a message on their homepage which describes the situation & states that they are under “an aggressive cyber attack”. Click to see screen shot. Sister sportsbook SportsBetting.ag is also affected by this same cyber attack.

It is important to understand that customer data & funds are secure. This is a DDoS attack in which the perpetrator floods the websites with so much fake traffic that it overwhelms the servers. More on DDoS attacks

UPDATE: Friday, 10/16/20 at 2:14 PM – BetOnline has confirmed they are down because of cyber attack. Here is the message they just sent out to customers: “Valued customers, we are offline due to an aggressive cyber attack. We’re taking every measure to resolve the issue and we will be fully operational again as soon as possible.”.

Original: Friday, 10/16/20 at 1:01 PM – The very popular online sportsbook BetOnline.ag has been down all day today 10/16/20. The people at BetOnline are aware of the issue and are working to restore the site.

The error message people are getting has alternated between a BetOnline page with a computer generated error message stating that the Cloudflare connection is working and that the server is returning an error and another message which simply states “You do not have permission to view this directory or page.”.

It should be noted that there were a string of outages with BetOnline a couple of years ago due to a DDoS attack. There is no confirmation if this is what is happening here. BetOnline does employ Cloudflare, a company which specializes in preventing these sorts of attacks. Coincidentally (or not) Cloudflare just sent this message to all of its clients this afternoon.

Latest Tweets from BetOnline on the Situation

UPDATE: We are now LIVE with most services and expect to be 100% very soon. Thank you for your patience and we truly value your business.

— BetOnline.ag (@betonline_ag) October 18, 2020

UPDATE: We made significant progress overnight and expect to be live with most services today.

— BetOnline.ag (@betonline_ag) October 18, 2020

We are happy to update the following commonly asked questions:

1. All player balances and funds are 100% safe and secure

2. All pending wagers are still valid

We are rapidly working on an overall solution and hope to have one for you ASAP.

Thank you again for your patience.

— BetOnline.ag (@betonline_ag) October 18, 2020

UPDATE: We have made significant progress over the last 24 hours, and we hope to be able to provide a more concrete timeline for reopening soon. We will continue to provide updates as we work diligently to restore services. Thank you for your continued patience.

— BetOnline.ag (@betonline_ag) October 17, 2020

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience, we hope to have the service fully restored soon. Thank you for your continued patience and understanding.

— BetOnline.ag (@betonline_ag) October 16, 2020