Nick Haslem of AustralianGambling.com.au reports:
In an alleged shocking betrayal of player privacy by gambling companies that includes 888, William Hill and Full Tilt Poker, AustralianGambling.com.au has today obtained a sample of player details that has been sold and traded like a commodity. At the time of printing, they have all refused to clarify whether their trading of personal details is a breach of law.
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It is understood that highly regulated operators such as PartyPoker and PokerStars do not participate in such activities.
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How the Personal Details of Gamblers are Sold
The alleged information was today handed out on a silver platter. After inquiring on an MSN conversation, AustralianGambling.com.au was given almost full details of the operation. This included the name of the person selling the data, who was helping him, the operators involved and what is claimed to be a sample 50 person excel sheet with full player details.
The way the system works is quite simple. Ryan Clegg buys data that he claims is real, on a regular basis from employees of online casinos, poker sites, sportsbooks, bookmakers and bingo sites. Clegg would not be drawn on whether the personal information being sold was traded with the knowledge of the online operators that it came from.
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The horrifying part of this alleged trade is that details including full names, residential addresses, dates of birth, email addresses and other financial information including amounts deposited and lost or won, is being sold for an agreed fee to whoever has enough money to purchase it.
Read more on AustralianGambling.com.au
Update: On Oct. 24, this site wrote to the three firms mentioned in the first paragraph of the news story to ask for their response to the allegations. As of October 28, only one firm has responded. A spokesperson from the Operations Department at Cassava Enterprises (Gibraltar) Ltd. which is part of the 888.com group of companies wrote:
We have received your email query regarding the allegations that we (888) sell or trade our customer?s personal information details.
I can inform you that any such claim is an unfounded allegation.
As a company we value our member’s on line security and would never engage in such an activity.
Update 2 of Nov. 2: Full Tilt Poker responded today to the inquiry of Oct. 24:
Thank you for your enquiry.
The privacy of Full Tilt Poker’s customers is of utmost importance.
Full Tilt Poker has not, and will not sell any of our players data under any circumstances.
We adhere to strict guidelines in relation to our player’s privacy as outlined in the link you have cited in your second question.