BC Lotteries CEO kept gov’t in the dark re PlayNow security breach

BCLC-Lotteries-CEO-PlayNowWho watches the watchmen? That famous question is meant to be rhetorical, but in the case of BC Lotteries Corporation, there is a definitive answer – nobody watches the watchmen but themselves.

How else would you explain why BC Lotteries CEO Michael Graydon – despite being told on the day of PlayNow’s ill-fated launch that the site had exposed players’ data — felt comfortable with telling the corporation’s responsible minister in gov’t that ‘current information’ indicated the shutdown was due to ‘high traffic volumes’ that required them to “bring the site down temporarily to put additional hardware in place to support traffic.” Hear that? Everything’s tickety-boo! Everybody loves us! Nothing to see here! Move along… Please?

(Ironically, this revelation comes on the same day that the man who designed PlayNow’s back end, OpenBet’s David Loveday, confessed to an English rag that the launch had endured ‘a few hiccups.’ You don’t say…)

Keep in mind, Graydon’s ‘high traffic’ statement was made in an email sent to gov’t Minister Rich Coleman the following morning, meaning Graydon went to bed knowing the truth, then woke up and told Coleman something else entirely. Seven hours after Graydon ‘misspoke’, he was apparently struck by a sudden wave of remorse (prompted perhaps by the initial media reports of the site’s wonky security), which led Graydon to send Coleman a followup fess-up email in which he revealed the ugly truth.

Ah, nothing like self-regulation to put a punter’s mind at ease, is there? Honestly, it’s pretty sad when the punter and the media are the first lines of defense against operator ineptitude and/or chicanery. This kind of slap-dash approach to both security and regulatory oversight would never be tolerated in proper online gaming jurisdictions such as Antigua, London or Kahnawake, where most of the private (and professional) online gaming operators, like Bodog, choose to base their operations. But apparently anything goes in Costa Rica North, er, British Columbia.