A man stole 500,000€ from an online betting operator PAF

[Winnergambling]

A finnish 29-year old man stole 500,000€ from a Åland based online gambling company PAF. Man used an inner software glitch in PAF´s system while transfering monies between two gaming accounts - the monies didn´t disappear from the original account in transfers so he was able to double his account balance on every transfer. Man in question then rose the amount on his accounts to 1 million euro before he started to cash out. He cashed out in lumps of 9,000€, which is under the amount needing manual confirmation. After he had cash out ~500,000€ this way without getting caught, he accidentally tried to cash out 19,000€, which rised a manual confirmation flag and he got caught.

In trial he said he had used the monies stolen to stocks, internet games and consuming.

Source (article in finnish): http://www.iltalehti.fi/espoo/200805227691040_eo.shtml

[Hano]

Go Finland Go! It's not his fault if he has managed to withdraw that money. As far as I know, these kind of bugs are relative common in this industry. And it is unwritten rule that if you manage to withdraw you can keep your winnings. Didn't you winnerg also say in your old blog that small syndicate, in which you belonged, managed to withdraw hundreds of thousands euros in some casino group becouse same kind of bug?

Remember's me about the time when Veikkaus considered law case against PAF, becouse they should make their games unaviable to continent-Finns.

These 'wind suits' live in 19th century.

[Winnergambling]

There has been similar kind of cases in the industry before. But of course in smaller scale. Like the amount like that has been divided between ~20 casinos and dozens of players from all over the world, so it´s not that big of a hit to a single casino or gain to a single player.

Also in this case, I think that locality (is there such a word) helped in this case - it´s much more easier for PAF to make this a court case since PAF operates only at Finland (an Sweden?) so they don´t have to charge persons all over the world for just losing a few thousand for example, which of course wouldn´t be clever financially.

[Wakke]

Go Finland Go! It's not his fault if he has managed to withdraw that money. As far as I know, these kind of bugs are relative common in this industry. And it is unwritten rule that if you manage to withdraw you can keep your winnings. Didn't you winnerg also say in your old blog that small syndicate, in which you belonged, managed to withdraw hundreds of thousands euros in some casino group becouse same kind of bug?

Remember's me about the time when Veikkaus considered law case against PAF, becouse they should make their games unaviable to continent-Finns.

These 'wind suits' live in 19th century.

I disagree. He didn't win any money so they weren't his winnings in the first place. Secondly he had only one goal and that was to withdraw and steal as much as he can. If I accidentally left my door open, it doesn't mean that someone can stole everything I got.

But honestly this shows how bad supervision casinos' have. How come PAF didn't know that somebody had 1M Euros in his account? And if they knew it why weren't they suspicious? If I would own casino, I would like to know how much money my customers have because that doesn't belong to me.

Secondly if somebody can withdraw 500 000 € without any suspicion that shows that PAF earns a lot of money because they didn't seem to care that they had lost 500 000 € to someone.

What comes to that small syndicate is that they didn't steal anything. They only used software bug in a way that they won money. They weren't actually stealing because they didn't broke any T&C that's why they got to keep their monies.

[LongJohn]

it´s much more easier for PAF to make this a court case since PAF operates only at Finland (an Sweden?) so they don´t have to charge persons all over the world for just losing a few thousand for example, which of course wouldn´t be clever financially.

Well just checked their web site and T&C
"2.1 Registration requirements
Any person over 18 years of age with an a registered e-wallet or being a bank account holder in a country with which the Operator practices payment cooperation may be registered as the Operator’s Gaming Customer. A Gaming Customer residing or staying outside Åland is responsible for the validity of his/her participation in the game at his/her location"

So i think PAF might have customers at least all over Europe...

E: on the main topic i'd have to say that what this 29-year old hero did was criminal. Probably he hasn't quite understood how severe crime he has committed. I think that in virtual world of internet people lose easily sense of proportion and they are ready to do things that they wouldn't do in "real world".