Due to the their website still being offline following a DDoS attack, we are posting this announcement from our long time sponsors and supporters EVE Bet on their behalf. It’s the least we can do after years of working together with these wonderful people:
Dear EVE-Bet players and friends,
First of all apologies for the abrupt downtime over the last few days. We were subjected to a DDOS attack just prior to the final match of ATXIV and were only able to partially restore service afterwards. Users from outside Australia and New Zealand (the region where our server is hosted) were unable to reach the site without using a VPN with an Australian endpoint and that situation has persisted for the last few days.
We know a lot of our users have been frustrated (and perhaps made a little nervous) by the suddenness of the site going offline. It’s been a very frustrating time for us as well and we express our gratitude to those have been patient and understanding in the meantime.
Trigger warning: you might start to freak out as you read this next bit but don’t worry, you’re still gonna get your ISK back.
After prolonged discussions with our hosting provider and internally we have decided not to bring the site back online. EVE Bet is now permanently closed, effective immediately.
While I don’t want to go into specifics about the exact nature of the technical issue we’re facing, suffice to say it would be a time and labour intensive process for our volunteer IT staff to make the necessary changes to bring the site back online reliably and securely. Considering that we are only allowed to operate until the 8th of November anyway, we have determined that it’s not worth the effort for just couple more weeks of trading.
Like we’ve been saying since the news about EULA changes first broke: we have no intention of running off with your ISK and we have a plan to allow our users to claim what’s in their EVE Bet wallet. The procedure is as follows:
1. EVE Bet customers should send an evemail from any characters they have associated with an EVE Bet account to this character: EVE Bet Recruiter which is in the corporation EVE-Bet [EVE-B]. (You can write anything in the subject and body).
2. Upon receiving the evemail our bankers will locate your character in our database and transfer the balance of your EVE Bet wallet back to that character in-game.
Effectively the only difference between this method and the way you’d normally make a withdrawal is that you’re initiating the request via evemail rather than through our site. Simple, right? It’s already set up and you can do this right now.
Any bets placed prior to the site going down on Sunday for events that are still unresolved will be paid out as usual when the event concludes. If this affects you it means you will have to send another email after the results are in to get the payout from that event.
We will be honouring all payouts right up until the last minute: 11:00 EVE time on Tuesday, 8th November which is when the new EULA comes into effect and any further transactions from EVE Bet would be considered in breach of Section B: “You may not use, transfer or assign any game assets for games of chance operated by third parties.”
If you have any difficulties retrieving your ISK please send an email to [email protected] with as much detail as possible and we’ll do our best to help you.
THE ELEPHANTS IN THE ROOM
First – yes, we realise that this means you can’t log into the site and confirm your wallet balance with your own eyes prior to making your withdrawal. That will no doubt open the door to some tinfoil.
Second – we know the EVE community is very tech literate and no doubt some of you will be thinking “why don’t they just do x to get the site online again?”.
Due to mitigating circumstances after the DDOS attack, putting the site back online would create a number of issues for us which just aren’t worth dealing with when considering we’re closing down in a few weeks anyway. In both cases we’re doing something pretty outrageous considering this is EVE we’re talking about: We’re asking you to trust us.
At the risk of providing satisfaction to whoever perpetrated the DDOS attack on us, we’d like to say that we’re very disappointed that we’re going out with a whimper instead of a bang. We had hoped to build up to the closing of EVE Bet and conclude with some kind of public event to invite our supporters along for one final bash but it looks like we won’t get to realise that plan.
However, the one thing that they can’t take away from us is our reputation and the respect we’ve earned in the community by always being decent citizens and dealing honestly with our users. In that regard we feel EVE Bet is very much going out on top.
Thanks once again to all of our great users and supporters over the last four years.
– The EVE Bet team.
