Flutter Investigates Major Data Breach Affecting Paddy Power and Betfair Users

Flutter Entertainment, who own both the online gambling sites, has revealed that it has “…suffered a data incident…” and has launched an internal investigation. The investigation was initiated immediately after Flutter became aware of the data breach. External IT experts are conducting the investigation in an effort to understand what happened and implement improvements that will prevent this from happening again. For now, Flutter has offered assurance that “…the unauthorised access has been removed and the incident contained.”

The leak only impacted Paddy Power and Betfair users, with personal information such as names, email addresses, and first lines of addresses being stolen. Online activity data has also been compromised. The company has claimed that “…no passwords, ID documents or usable card or payment details were impacted.” Flutter says users do not need to take any action in response to the incident, but should approach the sites with caution. Data breaches can be used to target customers by sending legitimate-looking emails and this is what Flutter is trying to warn customers of.

By the end of 2024, Flutter Entertainment had an average of over 4.2 million monthly players across all its brands in the UK and Ireland and its other betting companies include Tombola and Sky Bet who have also recently been in the news regarding a data breach back between 2017 – 2019.

This is not the first data breach that the iGaming industry has seen. Germany’s Merkur was affected by a data breach in February. This breach resulted in a leak of banking details, causing widespread concern. Since then, Merkur has promised players high levels of cybersecurity to protect players’ data.

It will be interesting to see how Flutter Entertainment reacts in the long term to this cyberattack and how they will seek to improve data protection and keep their customers safe.