Oddschecker confirms data breach exposing passwords and personal details

Oddschecker, a betting odds comparison platform, has confirmed a data breach that exposed user passwords, contact information, and dates of birth.

The company notified account holders by email this week, describing the incident as an IT security incident involving user data. FairPlay Sports Media, which owns Oddschecker, said the matter had already been contained by the time customers were informed.

"We recently identified, contained and resolved an IT security incident involving a limited part of our systems," a FairPlay Sports Media spokesperson told SBC News. "This did not disrupt our usual services and we continue to operate as normal. We are liaising closely with our users, partners and the relevant authorities."

Oddschecker said it has not identified any evidence that the exposed data has been misused, including through phishing messages sent to customers’ personal email addresses. The company said it enlisted a team of external information technology specialists to close down the incident and reported the matter to relevant authorities, which likely includes the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office.

Account holders have been urged to change their passwords and to update login credentials on any other accounts where they reused the same information. In its message to customers, Oddschecker said incidents of this kind are increasingly common and affect organizations across all sectors.

The breach adds to a lengthening record of cybersecurity incidents across the betting and gaming industry, where platforms manage large volumes of personal data that make them attractive targets for cybercriminals. An analysis of more than 7,000 websites conducted earlier this year by scam-detection service ScamInfo.ai found that betting and gambling platforms accounted for more than 34.7 percent of the sites it classified as critical risk.

Other operators have faced similar incidents in recent years. Flutter Entertainment’s Paddy Power and Betfair brands were targeted in a major attack in the United Kingdom last year. In the United States, BetMGM disclosed in 2022 that several patron records had been accessed in a breach, and Boyd Gaming was later sued by a former employee after a cybersecurity incident was disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. In Kenya, an examination of communications in June uncovered what was described as a systematic compromise of subscriber data at betting operator Betika, leading to a legal dispute.