Fanatics Sportsbook experienced an outage on Wednesday afternoon that triggered a series of technical difficulties for players in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.
As a result of the technical problem, players in the aforementioned states were unable to perform even the simplest actions, including logging into their accounts, making bets, and making transactions, consequently causing outrage across the company’s social media platforms.
According to Fanatics Sportsbook, the outage was caused by a damaged optical fibre cable, which allegedly took down the company’s workflow during a time when online betting activity was at its highest.
New York was hit hardest by the technical problem, however, users in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut also experienced issues.
Fanatics came out with an official statement and said that it plans to settle all bets before the website experienced the outage, claiming that the cable was cut by a “third party”. The company is yet to reveal more details.
This, however, didn’t seem to please fans, as many players and industry watchers ponder whether the technical problem was done on purpose, or was an accident, with some players going as far as saying that it may actually be sabotage.
Fanatics intends to fix the damage and appease players by promising $1 million in FanCash, the sportsbook’s in-house reward money, to users who suffered due to the outage. Moreover, customers from New York will also get a 50% Profit Boost Token.
FanCash allows players to buy various incentives on Fanatics.com, and this also includes purchasing extra bets that customers can use in the sportsbook. This, according to some users, is not enough to fix the damage, yet it still shows that the company is taking measures to give back to those who lost.
Fanatics Sports is part of a major sports retail company owned by Michael Rubin and is currently the fifth-most-popular online sportsbook in New York. As such, Fanatics handled a total of $1.6 billion in bets and netted $120.2 million.
