German regulator blames certificate glitch for 10-hour deposit blackout
The GGL states claims technical error was behind the issue, with country’s trade body arguing such failings give black market firms a significant boost
The German gambling regulator (GGL) has revealed an expired certificate across the nationwide LUGAS deposit system was the cause of a 10-hour blackout for operator’s last weekend.
Customers were unable to make deposits or register new accounts with German operators on 15 March for almost 10 hours following the outage.
LUGAS, which is run by the GGL and mandatory for operators to use, is a deposit limit supervisory service.
Initially describing the fault as a “technical malfunction”, the GGL said: “Among other things, [the glitch] resulted in new registrations and deposits at legal online gambling providers being unavailable for several hours.
“Nevertheless, the LUGAS system is designed to ensure that existing customers with existing credit balances can legally participate in games even in the event of a system failure.”
The GGL subsequently investigated the glitch, with its IT provider Dataport able to resolve the issue on Saturday evening, with LUGAS fully operational since.
Further investigations from Dataport established that an expired certificate on the LUGAS site to be the cause of the issue.
The GGL said: “According to Dataport, it was caused by an expired certificate.
“A previously installed new certificate was faulty despite testing, so the provider interface was unavailable after the old certificate expired.
“After a functional certificate was provided on Saturday 15 March, the interface was fully available again as of 10:54pm.”
The German Sports Betting Association (DSWV) has since called for a “proper investigation” into the failing and said the error would have helped black market operators in Germany.
The trade body also stated that licensed operators require 24/7 support from Dataport to prevent such issues occurring again.
Mathias Dahms, DSWV president, said: “This is not just about considerable economic damage.
“If legal sports betting offers cannot be used by customers from Germany on a Bundesliga Saturday, the illegal betting providers are very happy to accept new customers and deposits [and] will benefit first and foremost.
“There is no player protection in the black market. The German tax authorities are also left empty-handed.”