Did Hackers Bring Down a $1m MTT?

Did Hackers Bring Down a $1m MTT?

Tuesday, 16 December 2014

A $1 million online tournament in the US was cancelled on Sunday after multiple connection issues on the Winning Poker Network.

Despite trying to host the largest ever prizepool event in the US since Black Friday, the Winning Poker Network was forced to abandon the action after 4 hours of play because numerous players were being disconnected without a good reason.

After taking the decision to stop the action, a statement was released by the US poker site:

"Due to circumstances out of our control, we have failed to provide a stable, fair gaming experience. Many players timed out, while others remained connected. As per our terms and conditions, the tournament has been cancelled and buy-in fees have been refunded to all participants."

As yet the reason for this network's issues are unknown, however the company's CEO, Phil Payton, later took to twitchtv to give his thoughts on the matter. Whether or not his insight proves to be accurate, Payton's suggestion that the site was under attack from hackers certainly got the community talking:

"Call it conspiracy, call it whatever you want but a lot of online poker sites have had connectivity issues and when you have these issues you have to filter out the bad traffic that's causing the connectivity issues and with that you filter out some good traffic, hence players get disconnected but the site stays online. Whoever was causing the disconnections was waiting for the Million because whenever it started, it started."


After refunding players to the tune of $250,000, Payton is now looking into the issue and whether the network was the target of a malicious DDoS attack.



Tags: Winning Poker Network, hackers