Americas Cardroom (ACR) on the Winning Poker Network is the victim of severe Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) attacks which began the better part of this past week, the online poker site confirmed in an advisory.
Since Wednesday, 25 April, customers have had intermittent success accessing the site at login, while many others have been unable to play at all. Those that have gained access have been faced with paused or cancelled tournaments as a result of the attacks.
Bob Garcia of Americas Cardroom says the attacks, in many instances, are motivated by financial gain where a ransom is demanded for services to be restored.
“However, it’s our policy to never pay ransom regardless of the cost, as we will never give in to cyber terrorism,” he said.
Garcia points to previous DDoS attacks, as recent as September 2017 where the site was again incapacitated.
“This isn’t the first time we’ve experienced these attacks, and we’re sure it won’t be the last.
“Our DDoS mitigation team is working around the clock to mitigate the attacks, and we’ll continue to work tirelessly until all systems are online and we continue to provide you with an excellent gameplay environment, just as we did the times before.”
In the September attack, CEO of WPN – Phil Nagy alluded to the possibility that the attack may have been orchestrated by a rival online poker operator.
Forums are alight with accounts of failed login and tournament play written by frustrated ACR players, many of whom question the operator’s capabilities in resolving the problem.