With the Premier League title race for 2020 / 2021 in full swing and other sports available (including horse racing, NFL, tennis, golf, and motorsport), you may be looking to place bets even while you’re away on a vacation abroad.
Betfair is built to help customers gamble and place bets on a wide range of sports and other markets, as long as they are located in a country where online gambling is legal and Betfair is licensed to operate in that region.
If you have a Betfair account in a country where the service is legal to use, then placing bets while you are within that country is simple.
However, if you are traveling abroad for work or a vacation, then you could be blocked from accessing the Betfair website while you are outside of your home country. So, to place your bets abroad, you’ll need to take steps to unblock access to the Betfair website first.
In this article, I will show you how to use a VPN to access Betfair abroad in Australia, Canada, the U.S., and many more countries, and what steps you’ll need to take to do it.
How to Access Betfair With a VPN
When accessing Betfair from a restricted country, you’ll receive a message telling you that the service is not available in your current location.
This message indicates that either the country you are in does not permit gambling or that Betfair does not have a license from the local gambling authority to operate in that region.
If you have a legal Betfair account in your home country, then it’s possible to access Betfair from anywhere in the world. Here are the steps to follow.
- To bypass geo-restrictions and access the Betfair website, you can use a Virtual Private Network (VPN). A VPN, such as NordVPN, enables you to appear as though you are in your home country, where Betfair is legal, by routing your internet connection through a VPN server.
- Be sure to select a VPN that has servers in your home country in order to access your Betfair account while overseas. For example, if you hold a Betfair account in the U.K., NordVPN offers multiple U.K.-based servers, making it ideal for accessing Betfair abroad.
- Once connected to a VPN server in the correct country, navigate to Betfair, login, and use your account as normal.
Disclaimer: Online gambling is illegal in several countries around the world, while there are many other countries that haven’t passed any formal legislation on online gambling to date, making them a legal gray area.
Pixel Privacy does not condone illegal gambling or using a VPN to spoof your location for the purpose of breaking local laws. It’s important that you look into the local laws where you are residing before using a VPN to access any online gambling websites, including Betfair.
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Why Do You Need a VPN to Use Betfair Abroad?
Online gambling provides convenience, in-play gambling (placing bets during a live sporting event), and the option to cash-out a bet during a live sporting event (taking a percentage of your winnings or cutting your losses, depending on how your bet is working out).
Betfair is legal in many countries around the world, and this includes Australia, the United Kingdom, and even in some areas of the U.S.
However, many governments are concerned 24/7 access to gambling services and the effect it might have on things such as its citizens’ health or morality. The difficulty of regulating those betting services is another concern.
So, these governments have made online gambling websites illegal in their territories.
A good example of this the United Arab Emirates. Bet365 can’t operate in the UAE, and it would be illegal for the company to operate there because local laws prohibit gambling.
Even in countries where online betting itself is legal, accessing and using Betfair may still be illegal due to licensing laws.
One example is Singapore, where a Remote Gambling Act was brought into law in February 2015, and now only select operators issued with an exemption certificate can legally operate there.
In such countries, users will not be able to access the Betfair website and will receive a message telling them that Betfair is not available where they are located.
If you travel to a country where Betfair is not permitted or all online gambling websites are blocked, you will need to find a workaround if you want to use the service while you are abroad.
Most users opt to use a VPN as a workaround as it allows for privacy, security and access to websites blocked by geo-restrictions or censorship.
Please note that it’s illegal to connect to Betfair from a country where gambling online is illegal, even with a VPN. For this reason, Pixel Privacy does not support the use of a Virtual Private Network to connect to gambling websites like Betfair in places where it is illegal to do so.
Still, many internet users who travel abroad regularly, and who want to connect to geo-restricted content from home, do find value in connecting to Betfair via a VPN.
How to Connect to Betfair With a VPN
Betfair blocks users from accessing its website in countries where online gambling is banned or where Betfair does not have a license to operate.
They do this, understandably, to prevent breaking local laws and to protect themselves from the huge potential fines for allowing unauthorized users to gamble illegally.
Despite this, the method used to block access to the Betfair website is a simple geo-restriction. This works when the website detects the part of the world the user is in by looking at their IP address and denies or allows access to the Betfair website based on this information.
This is a fairly simple block to bypass with a VPN service. VPN services allow users from almost anywhere to bypass region blocks and access blocked websites like Betfair, streaming services like Netflix, and other censored websites.
A VPN can spoof your location by connecting to a server in another part of the world, making it appear as though you are located there.
For example, let’s say you’re an Australian citizen, but you are currently traveling in the U.S. In order to access your Betfair account, you should choose a VPN that offers servers located in Australia.
This way, you can connect to an Australia-based server while you are in the U.S., which will give you an Australian IP address that will unblock access to the Betfair website.
It’s important to choose a VPN that offers multiple servers in the location your Betfair account is registered in.
The best VPNs, such as NordVPN, offer thousands of servers located in many countries around the world, giving you the most choice on what content you can unblock. NordVPN‘s servers are also fast and secure, able to prevent third parties from spying on your online activity.
Be sure to go with a paid VPN. I would always caution against using free VPNs, which don’t offer the same level of performance or security.
A VPN service can also provide encryption of all your data, so no one, including your ISP, can see what you’re doing online. I would recommend choosing a VPN with 256-bit encryption, which is military-grade and keeps your privacy completely secure.
Connecting to Betfair in the U.S.
Although Betfair does offer a service in New Jersey in the U.S., it’s not the full Betfair service with sportsbook betting. Instead, it’s only Betfair Casino that’s available to New Jersey residents.
Betfair Casino in the U.S. is a distinct service, separate from the main Betfair website. It offers several slot games and table games, including poker, blackjack, and roulette, which will appeal to some users.
In order to access Betfair Casino in the U.S., you must be located in the state of New Jersey at the time you connect to the Betfair Casino website. Betfair Casino requires users to download a location detector to their browser in order to enable access to the service.
Note: It’s against the law to access the Betfair Casino service from outside of New Jersey. It’s only legal to access the service while you’re actually located within New Jersey.
Unfortunately, I have found that using a VPN and connecting to U.S. servers in New Jersey won’t unblock access to the main Betfair service.
What Can I Use Betfair For?
Betfair is one of the largest operators within the online betting market, and according to the company’s 2018 annual report, it has 6 million active users.
Depending on the region you live in, you may be able to access the many services that Betfair offers, including the betting exchange, where users can bet against each other and set their own odds. There’s also fixed-odds sports betting, plus access to casino, poker, games and bingo services.
Betfair also offers betting on special events, such as political betting, financial betting, and TV show betting.
Sports you can bet on include:
- Boxing
- MMA
- American Football
- Chess
- Curling
- Athletics
- Cycling
- Handball
- Rowing
- Horse Racing
- Darts
- Tennis
- Snooker
- Basketball
- Motor Sport
- Cricket
- Greyhound Racing
- Rugby Union
- Golf
- Gaelic Games
Legal Countries for Using Betfair
Online gambling laws change all the time, and so does the list of countries where Betfair operates.
For instance, Betfair previously offered their services in Canada, an offer that they subsequently withdrew due to the complexity of running the service in that region.
Betfair is currently applying for a license to operate in Portugal and will unblock their website to users in that region once licensing is finalized.
In order to give you an idea of the countries where Betfair is available, below is a list of countries where the service is legal and a list of countries where it’s banned.
This list does not include any countries with no current laws on Betfair or online gambling. As mentioned above, this list changes regularly, so double-check that Betfair is still legal in the region you are interested in before using the service.
Where Is It Legal to Use Betfair?
- U.K.
- Ireland
- Netherlands
- Italy
- Estonia
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Poland
- Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Hungary
- Macedonia
- Moldova
- Croatia
- Serbia
- Montenegro
- Romania
- Slovakia
- Czech Republic
- Sweden
- Denmark
- Finland
- Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Germany
- Malta
- Russia
- Ukraine
- Lichtenstein
- Luxembourg
- Switzerland
- Norway
- Gibraltar
- New Jersey, USA
Where Is Betfair Banned?
- Afghanistan
- Algeria
- American Samoa
- Angola
- Austria
- Brunei Darussalam
- China
- France (including French Territories)
- Guam
- Guyana
- Hong Kong
- Islamic Republic of Iran
- Iraq
- Japan
- Korea
- Kuwait
- Lao People’s Democratic Republic
- Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
- Martinique
- Myanmar
- Namibia
- Northern Mariana Islands
- Papua New Guinea
- Puerto Rico
- Singapore
- South Africa
- Sudan
- The Syrian Arab Republic
- Turkey
- Uganda,
- USA (excluding New Jersey)
- Virgin Islands (USA)
- Yemen
- Zimbabwe
