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Four days after Sands Las Vegas casino websites were hacked into, the respective sites for nine different properties are yet to be operating in full capacity.
Logging onto the Sands Casino Bethlehem, Pennsylvania site leads to a page with the message “The Website is Undergoing Maintenance”. It now features photographs of each property with pertinent phone numbers. In today’s Internet age, however, Web surfers are more prone to move onto other casino sites that permit online reservations. Those looking to book rooms online at any of the Sands Las Vegas properties could still do so via third party websites such as Expedia and Hotels.com.
A Nevada gambling regulator said Thursday afternoon that it's unclear whether the hackers who knocked down all of Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s websites on Tuesday had stolen patron data, including credit card information.
Nevada Gaming Control Board chairman A.G. Burnett said regulators' first priority after the world's largest casino operator was hacked Monday was to ensure the safety of player information and the integrity of the gambling systems.
Burnett said Sands officials told him that preliminary indications suggested these two areas had not been breached, but the company was continuing to investigate.
Prior to the websites being taken down, the Allentown, PA Morning Call newspaper published screenshots of the respective sites immediately after they had been hacked. The screenshot included a picture of Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson, a major GOP donor, posing with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a message condemning the use of weapons of mass destruction. Adelson had previously suggested that Israel should drop an atomic bomb on Iran in order to deter that nation from pursuing its nuclear ambitions.
Adelson has also made enemies in the online gambling world as he threatened to spend millions to quash the expansion of legalized real money Web gambling in the US. His anti-Internet gambling coalition had released a new advertisement citing online gambling as a threat to US national security just hours prior to Tuesday’s hacking, raising some speculation that the whole Iranian angle could be some sort of ruse.
The FBI and Secret Service confirmed an investigation into Tuesday’s hacking, which brought the powerful casino enterprise to its knees.
A spokeswoman for the FBI told Bloomberg News the agency was aware of the situation and was “addressing it as appropriate.”
Amidst the hacking situation, Sands China reported record profits on Friday with net revenues up 37 per cent to $8.9bn – more than the total revenue made by the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip – while adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation grew 47 per cent to $2.9bn.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
