Fanduel Sportsbook Temporarily Closing Some Betting Accounts Following Hackings

Written by:
Aaron Goldstein
Published on:
Nov/21/2022

FanDuel Sportsbook gave the boot to one of the better known professional sports bettors, Gadoon “Spanky” Kryollos, albeit for maybe three hours Monday afternoon.   By Monday evening, Spanky's account was reinstated.

Mr. Kryollos has hosted high level employees of FanDuel at his popular Bet Bash events.  He also founded a lines service that debuted this football season, Spank Odds and even hosts a podcast that seeks to help make individuals better sports gamblers. 

Spanky tweeted:

"Hey @FDSportsbook, my account says it’s suspended. Your customer service leaves much to be desired. I have a hefty balance and pending bets that I can’t even see. Accounts has been open for years. What gives?"

FanDuel customer service did respond quickly to Spanky's tweet.

"Hello and sorry to hear of the account troubles! At your earliest convenience, please send us a DM with your email address and we will be happy to help you get this sorted out. Thank you!"

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By the evening, Spanky returned to confirm his account had been reinstated and noted that FanDuel took the action out of concern over a potential compromise.  Did Spanky have a rare losing weekend or something?

Competitor Draftkings confirmed "some of their customer accounts were hacked for $300,000".

That hacking was uncovered after they were hit with a number of suspicious withdrawal requests.

“DraftKings is aware that some customers are experiencing irregular activity with their accounts. We currently believe that the login information of these customers was compromised on other websites and then used to access their DraftKings accounts where they used the same login information,” Paul Liberman, DraftKings’ co-founder and president for global technology and product said in a statement.

FanDuel and DraftKings are enticing targets for hackers. Together they occupy a significant chunk of the market share. FanDuel CEO Amy Howe acknowledged that "almost 90% of the operators have a sub-2% share of the market".

This past week, she warned newcomers entering the U.S. legal sports betting sector that it's survival of the fittest, and FanDuel is the fittest of them all. 

"Good luck with sports betting − you’re going to need it," Howe proudly proclaimed.

The company seems mostly honed in on Fanatics, the mega retailer that plans to enter the market in early 2023.

“It should be clear that new entrants that are entering now at this point may face a real challenge taking on scale players who have more than a four-year head start,” Howe said at the company’s Capital Markets Day on Wednesday.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com

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