I worked on online casino software for several years and we had a number of bugs like this. They would usually involve someone writing a client to hit our API directly and fiddling with the xml messages. The operators would usually catch the issues within hours, turn off the game and often deny the players their winnings, if it was a legitimate win. Several people wound up in jail for exploits.
In the early days of the company it was a fairly significant problem with incidents pretty frequently. The lack of QA and a release process really bit them a few times as well. A game was put into production with the result hard coded to a win. Goes to show that just because a company makes software that deals with money and is financially successful it does not mean they are at all competent. It took 9 years for them to turn things around and transform the company into a highly effective dev shop, at least by industry standards. I am proud I was part of that. Unfortunately the industry had some major problems in 2009-2010 and they ended up having to find a buyer who even more unfortunately does not appreciate or understand developers or software development.
We did integrations with many other gambling software companies and not a single organization was what I consider competent. I would love to see a new company with serious technical chops break into the world of online gambling and school the crusty behemoths. Hard to do however because of the network effects and importance of reputation and deal making.
In the early days of the company it was a fairly significant problem with incidents pretty frequently. The lack of QA and a release process really bit them a few times as well. A game was put into production with the result hard coded to a win. Goes to show that just because a company makes software that deals with money and is financially successful it does not mean they are at all competent. It took 9 years for them to turn things around and transform the company into a highly effective dev shop, at least by industry standards. I am proud I was part of that. Unfortunately the industry had some major problems in 2009-2010 and they ended up having to find a buyer who even more unfortunately does not appreciate or understand developers or software development.
We did integrations with many other gambling software companies and not a single organization was what I consider competent. I would love to see a new company with serious technical chops break into the world of online gambling and school the crusty behemoths. Hard to do however because of the network effects and importance of reputation and deal making.