Australian casino operator Star Entertainment Group experienced a three-day outage following a tech upgrade.

First reported by The Register, the outage occurred following a planned upgrade.

In a note to investors, Star said: "Following planned upgrades to The Star’s systems in readiness for the introduction of cashless gaming, certain of The Star’s systems have been disrupted due to system performance issues identified in post-upgrade testing which resulted in the decision to switch off all Electronic Gaming Machines and Electronic Table Games in each of The Star’s three properties from 10:00 pm onwards on 13 July 2024 until the issue is resolved."

An exact explanation of the "system performance issues" has yet to be shared. DCD has contacted Star for further information.

While the outage was supposedly voluntary, and necessary so as to comply with regulations, it wasn't until July 17 that all issues were rectified.

Star's concern with regulatory compliance follows a few years of turmoil in which Star was the subject of regulatory inquiries. In May 2024 the company was found to be not suitable for holding casino licenses in New South Wales.

The Register previously reported that a software problem had seen Star give away AU$3.2 million ($2.05 million) in cash from its Sydney operations.

Star Entertainment Group's website, at the time of writing, has a banner reading: "We're Open. Following the global outage, operations have returned to normal across all our properties," suggesting the Casino operator was also impacted by the Microsoft Azure and CrowdStrike outages on July 18.

Star operates three casinos in the Gold Coast, Sydney, and Brisbane.

In September 2023, MGM Resorts saw its IT systems impacted by a cyber attack that brought down slot machines, hotel room key systems, and the company's website.

MGM experienced another cyber incident in 2019 when the company's cloud service was breached and hackers stole 10.6 million customer records including names, addresses, and passport numbers.