Bookie Loses $2 Million to Extortionists
14 Apr 2004
AUSTRALIA – As reported by the (Australia) Courier- Mail: "A Northern Territory bookmaker has lost about $2million in turnover after its online betting service was jammed twice by extortionists.
"Alice Springs-based Centrebet said computer hackers contact betting agencies and threaten to block traffic to their website, rendering them useless, if they do not pay $26,000 into a bank account.
"…[Centrebet's Gerard] Daffy said 95 per cent of Centrebet's business was via the Internet and being offline for even 15 minutes was 'a lifetime'.
"…Mr Daffy said Centrebet received an extortion letter at 9.30pm on Saturday and 10 minutes later the site was being bombarded."