Hold on — DDoS hits aren’t just “IT problems”; for live dealers they’re a live show killer. Short outages mean frozen bets, angry players, and a reputation hit that lasts much longer than the downtime.
Here’s the value up front: if you run or support live-dealer tables, the three tactical moves that reduce business damage from DDoS are (1) early detection + automated mitigation, (2) rapid failover to secondary infrastructure, and (3) player-facing contingency plans (transparent messaging, refunds, and VIP routing). These three alone cut outage impact from hours of chaos to minutes of manageable service degradation.
What a live dealer sees when a DDoS hits
Wow — it’s dramatic. One minute you’re dealing blackjack, the next the video freezes and the chat floods. Dealers notice two immediate things: delayed bet registration and repeated reconnection attempts from players. Those are your first diagnostic flags.
From the floor: latency spikes first (100–300ms rising to 1,000ms+), then session timeouts. When that happens, your session store and dealer UI start to disagree about who has which bet in play. If you run auto-accept rules, those can misfire and award hands incorrectly — a compliance headache.
Practical attack taxonomy for live-dealer operations
Short taxonomy so you act on the right class of threat.
- Volumetric attacks — flood your bandwidth (UDP amplification, SYN flood).
- Protocol attacks — exploit weaknesses in TCP/IP stacks (slowloris, malformed packets).
- Application-layer attacks — mimic normal players but exhaust server resources (HTTP POST/WS frames to game servers).
- Mixed (multi-vector) attacks — simultaneous layers to confuse mitigation.
Quick Checklist — first 10 minutes after detection
- Isolate: identify affected endpoints and mark them as degraded.
- Notify ops: trigger on-call SRE and security lead immediately.
- Switch routing: activate DDoS scrubbing or route traffic through clean path (if configured).
- Freeze in-progress payouts: stop final settlement until state reconciled.
- Player comms: post a brief message in chat/lobby explaining the issue and expected timeline.
Core mitigation strategies (what works in production)
At first I thought a single cloud WAF would be enough — then we got hit by a seven-hour, multi-vector assault. Lesson learned: layering matters. Use at least two complementary controls: network/transport (bandwidth filtering, BGP null-routing options) plus application controls (rate limiting, session validation).
Here’s a practical stack I’ve used successfully: on-prem edge firewall for immediate protocol filtering, ISP-level scrubbing or null-routing for volumetric saturation, and a cloud scrubbing service (with WebSocket support) for application-layer cleaning. On top of that, have traffic shaping rules in your game servers to prioritise active sessions and VIP users.
Comparison table — mitigation options
| Option / Tool | Typical Cost (annual) | Time to Deploy | Protection Level | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud scrubbing (managed provider) | Medium–High | Hours–Days | High (volumetric + app) | Live ops needing elastic capacity |
| ISP upstream filtering / BGP routing | Low–Medium | Minutes–Hours | High (volumetric) | Large bandwidth floods |
| On-prem appliances (hardware scrubbing) | High (capex + maintenance) | Weeks | Medium–High | Data-centre owned environments |
| Hybrid (on-prem + cloud) | High | Days–Weeks | Very High | Enterprises needing redundancy |
| Application hardening & rate limits | Low | Hours–Days | Medium (app-layer) | Protect game logic and sessions |
How to choose — rules of thumb
On the one hand, small studios should prioritise cloud scrubbing + clear comms; on the other hand, large operators need hybrid redundancy with ISP-level commitments. But then again — and here’s the honest bit — budget constraints force trade-offs, so pick the single change that reduces your mean-time-to-recover (MTTR) the most.
A practical mid-market choice: contract a reputable cloud scrubbing provider that supports WebSockets and BGP failover, implement server-side session tombstones to avoid double payouts, and publish a public status page. For many operators that combination reduces customer churn during incidents by more than 50% compared to no plan.
Where business ops intersect with tech — a live-dealer case
Mini-case: a mid-size operator in AU experienced repeated afternoon floods targeted at their primary video ingest. They had no scrubbing service and relied on a single ISP. The attack caused a 3-hour outage and cost them VIP churn and compensation payouts totalling five figures.
Fix implemented: 48-hour SLA with a scrubbing vendor, emergency BGP routing with the ISP, and transactional checkpoints to pause settlements. Result: next test-attack saw seamless failover with 30 seconds of increased latency and no lost bets. That rollback in player impact recovered goodwill quickly.
Operational playbook — step-by-step
- Inventory endpoints: list all game servers, video ingest nodes, and chat relay points with public IPs.
- Threat modelling: map which endpoints would cause the highest player-impact if disrupted.
- Redundancy mapping: ensure at least one failover path for each critical endpoint (secondary region, different ASN).
- Automated routing: predefine BGP playbooks with your ISP and scrubbing partner — BGP community tags and route-maps ready.
- Application guards: implement per-IP and per-session rate limits, and validate bets against server-side state, not client-side timeouts.
- Player operations: craft transparent messages and compensation policies for partial sessions.
Where to invest first (budget-guided)
If you can only do one thing: buy cloud scrubbing with WebSocket/application support. If two: add BGP failover with your ISP. If three: add observability (synthetic player sessions + latency thresholds) so you detect attacks before customer complaints spike.
Tooling and indicators to watch
- Traffic baselines — normal vs. peak (kpps and Mbps by endpoint).
- Connection churn — sudden increases in SYNs or websocket opens/closures.
- Error patterns — climbing 4xx/5xx rates on game servers.
- CPU & memory correlated with traffic anomalies on ingest nodes.
Putting players first — comms & refunds
My gut says players remember the response more than the downtime. Be human. Post frequent updates in the lobby: what happened, what you’re doing, and expected time to recovery. Keep VIP managers on a separate, direct channel (SMS/Phone) for high-value users.
Also — and this is important — document and automate refunds/compensations when final settlement is blocked. That prevents manual mistakes and reduces escalations.
When the lobby goes quiet — post-incident reconciliation
After a DDoS you must reconcile three things: session state, financial state, and player trust. Use server-side logs to reconstruct actions; reconcile any ambiguous bets via pre-defined rules (e.g., “if state cannot be confirmed, refund”). Run a root-cause post-mortem and publish a redacted summary to players and regulators if needed.
Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- Assuming cloud CDN alone protects WebSocket traffic — validate WebSocket support explicitly.
- Not testing failover — schedule and document failover drills every quarter.
- Relying solely on reactive human intervention — automate detection and scripted responses.
- Ignoring VIP pathways — route VIP sessions on separate infrastructure where possible.
- Delaying customer comms — silence breeds speculation and brand damage.
Mini-FAQ (real questions ops ask)
Q: How quickly can BGP failover mitigate an attack?
A: With pre-agreed playbooks and route propagation, failover can occur in minutes. Expect DNS TTL implications if you change DNS; prefer BGP routing changes for IP-level redirection to scrubbing centres.
Q: Are WebSocket streams protected by standard CDNs?
A: Not always. Some CDNs terminate WebSockets and can scrub traffic; others do not. Verify WebSocket handshake handling and session affinity in your provider SLA.
Q: What KPIs pay back DDoS investment?
A: Two clear KPIs: MTTR (mean time to recover) and customer-impact minutes (player-minutes lost). Reduce MTTR below 5 minutes and you typically avoid VIP churn in most incidents.
Two short mini-examples (testable)
Example A: Synthetic sessions — run 200 synthetic players from diverse ASNs that perform a 30-second play loop every 5 minutes. If median latency to your ingest rises above threshold for two consecutive loops, trigger automated reroute to scrubbing provider.
Example B: Session tombstone strategy — on server, mark a session ‘pending’ for X seconds when connectivity drops. If no confirmation arrives, refund ticket and log for manual review. X should match your product flow (commonly 45–90s for live-dealer scenarios).
Where to learn more (operational resources)
For Australian operators, the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) publishes DDoS guidance and recommended contacts for ISPs during an incident. For implementation details and best practice briefs, NIST’s guidance on DDoS provides an excellent technical baseline. If you want a commercial partner that already supports live-dealer traffic patterns and social gaming workloads, look at vendors who document WebSocket scrubbing and BGP playbooks — for example, information and integrations are discussed openly on platforms like doubleu.bet which illustrate how studios coordinate live streaming and player flows in high-availability contexts.
Regulatory and responsible gaming notes (AU)
18+ only. In Australia, operational transparency and customer protection are important. While DDoS incidents are not gambling events per se, you must comply with consumer protection rules: clear refund policies, accurate reporting, and adequate customer support. If incidents persist, notify relevant authorities per the ACSC guidance and retain logs for regulatory review.
Responsible operations reminder: do not expose players to ambiguous financial risk. If bets cannot be confirmed due to technical incidents, refund or reverse them. Provide self-exclusion and support links when incidents correlate with problematic spending behaviour.
Final practical checklist before you finish reading
- Confirm WebSocket support with your scrubbing vendor and CDN.
- Predefine BGP failover playbooks with ISPs and test them quarterly.
- Automate detection thresholds (synthetic sessions + p95 latency triggers).
- Have scripted player communications and compensation templates ready.
- Run an annual tabletop incident with ops, legal, VIP, and PR teams.
Sources
- https://www.cyber.gov.au/acsc/view-all-content/advisories
- https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2014/NIST.IR.8005.pdf
- https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/ddos/what-is-a-ddos-attack/
About the Author
Alex Morgan, iGaming expert. Alex has run live-dealer operations and incident response exercises for multiple online casinos and social-casino platforms in the APAC region, focusing on network resilience and player-facing contingency planning.
