The Mail newspaper was given personal information relating to 10,000 Ladbrokes customers on Sunday after the Australian claimed to have accessed the bookmaker's database of 4.5 million people in Britain and overseas.

The information included home addresses, customer account numbers, birth dates, phone numbers and the gambling histories of clients.

Ladbrokes is now contacting its punters to assure them their credit card details, passwords and other financial information is safe.

They have also called in the police after being informed of the security breach and the matter is also being investigated by Britain's data watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

The database was offered for sale by an Australian-based man calling himself 'Daniel', who claimed to have worked as a computer security consultant for Ladbrokes in Britain two years ago.

"We have been informed that a person connected to our organisation has offered certain details from a customer database to the Mail on Sunday," Ciaran O'Brien, head of PR at Ladbrokes, told the Racing Post.

"This is a criminal act and we are working with the police, the ICO and the newspaper to identify and apprehend the culprit.

"We are in the process of contacting customers to apologise for this breach in security and to reassure them that everything is being done to protect their personal information.

"Importantly this does not effect customer passwords or banking data."

Date Posted: 28-Jan-2010