'I haven't withdrawn anything': DraftKings user details nearly losing thousands to hack

DraftKings (DKNG) shares sank nearly 11% on Monday following an Action Network report that customers had been hacked.

The hack came late Sunday night, normally the busiest day of the week for sportsbooks, and just hours before the first U.S. World Cup soccer match, an event anticipated to draw significant gambling interest.

In a statement provided to Yahoo Finance, DraftKings said it believes the login information of its customers was compromised on other websites and then used to access their DraftKings accounts with the same login information.

"We have seen no evidence that DraftKings’ systems were breached to obtain this information," Paul Liberman, DraftKings co-founder & president of global technology & product, said in the statement. "We have identified less than $300,000 of customer funds that were affected, and we intend to make whole any customer that was impacted."

Liberman also "strongly encouraged" customers to use unique passwords and avoid sharing them with other individuals and third-party sites.

Josh Cooper, a 39-year old living outside of Kansas City, Missouri, has been using the daily fantasy feature on DraftKings for several years. During Sunday night’s NFL matchup between the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs, DraftKings emailed Cooper that a withdrawal was being processed.

The first movement in the account not triggered by Cooper happened at 8:21 PM CT, according to account statements reviewed by Yahoo Finance. The hacker deposited $5.00. Six minutes later, nearly all of Cooper’s $19,439.00 had been withdrawn from the account.

“So I think: ‘Well I haven't withdrawn anything,’” Cooper told Yahoo Finance. “Since I was on my PC, I just quickly hit the account and hit ‘cancel withdrawal request’.”

Cooper, who was watching the game with his computer open to track his fantasy players, was able to quickly void the withdrawal. By 9:08 CT, the money was back in his account but he still can't access his account on other devices since the backup phone number to change the password had been changed.

“I got extremely lucky,” Cooper said. I think that I was just right there while it happened, logged in, able to hit the cancel button as soon as it popped up.”

Cooper emailed DraftKings support to alert of the issue at 9:21 CT.

“We understand how troubling it is to feel like someone else has access to your account,” a DraftKings player advocate wrote back 19 minutes later. “We've restricted your account as a precaution while we investigate. We'll follow up with your account's status once we have an update.”

Cooper regained access to his account on Monday afternoon and submitted a withdrawal that processed to his bank account.

Jon Strini, who claims to have lost more than $500, also hasn’t heard back about the status of his account but had a similar experience to Cooper.

"I woke up this morning and checked my account because I had a wager on the Chiefs game last night but fell asleep before the game was over and I wanted to see if I won,” Strini recalled to Yahoo Finance. “I knew something was up right away because my balance showed a total of $0.59. When I tried to check the balance, I was prompted by the two-step verification code. The code would not send to my phone. Somehow the hackers changed the phone number, so I’m essentially locked out of my account right now. They made a $5 deposit in the account and then withdrew everything.”

Since then, Strini has sent multiple email requests to DraftKings’ Help desk and left voicemails but has yet to receive a response.

“I have not found a way yet to get a human on the phone or to respond in any way,” he said.

This post has been updated.

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Josh is a reporter and producer for Yahoo Finance.

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