Sports Gambling Sites Run Into Technical Issues During Super Bowl

Sports betting apps like FanDuel, DraftKings, Penn National Gaming app and BetMGM experienced technical issues right before the Super Bowl on Sunday (Feb. 7), CNBC reported.

As the game was about to start, technicians tried to fix issues on those platforms and others in order to help placate disgruntled fans, according to CNBC. The problems still weren’t fixed by the end of the game, though, as BetMGM was still unable to settle bets.

On FanDuel, ads were put out before the game promoting the ease of customers signing up for free and playing to win, CNBC reported. The company said its outages had been “intermittent” and had come from demand that had been more than expected. But it said the platform hadn’t quit operating at any point. Technical issues were most abundant in Michigan where sports betting was legalized in January.

The Penn National Gaming Barstool app crashed, CNBC reported, and the company put the blame on third-party tech issues.

DraftKings took it further, though, putting the blame squarely on sports gambling partner Kambi, saying that the problem “was caused by a surge in traffic that caused problems for our backend provider. Our DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports) and pools products, supported by in-house technology, are functioning without issue. This incident is why we believe owning our own technology is important,” CNBC reported.

Last summer, DraftKings announced its intention to nix its partnership with Kambi by September of this year, according to the report.

Kambi responded, saying it had dealt with the biggest bet volumes in its history, and the problems had really only come from “one specific player-related bet offer and its increased range of outcomes offered,” CNBC reported.

According to PYMNTS, legal online gambling has done well through the pandemic as in-person sports have withered. The American Gaming Association found that there were 36 million adults added in seven new legal sports betting states, which was expected to result in a 63 percent increase in digital bets during the Super Bowl.

The rise of legal online betting comes as surveys show around two-thirds of respondents felt it is important to bet legally instead of on black-market venues.