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International Sports Betting

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The internet has made the world a much smaller place. It’s so easy now to get access to even the most obscure of betting markets from across the globe. If you stop and think about it, any online bookmaker that you happen to land at will be an international betting site. That’s because if you browse around the markets inside the sportsbook you won’t find options from just one specific country and that’s it.

Sportsbooks at online betting sites are so extensive and that has been one of the huge benefits of online sports betting. If you can recall a time back before the explosion of the internet, then how often would you ever find out what was going on in say the French top-flight football or from La Liga? It’s unlikely that you would have any kind of insight into a world outside your sporting doorstep.

But now international betting has become a pretty big thing. It’s not uncommon to jump on an online betting site and do this with no second thought. Look at the UEFA Champions League. Say you go and build an accumulator there involving Juventus, Barcelona, CSKA Moscow and FC Porto. That’s four teams from four different countries so you are getting your bit of international betting down.

For a further fun example. Think about some of the top events from North America like the NHL Stanley Cup Finals, MLB baseball, NBA basketball and American Football’s Super Bowl. Those are all major markets that any UK bookmaker is going to be covering with their services. So broadening your wagering to world sports betting is no longer a difficult or uncommon thing at all.

You can also think about this the other way around. The increase in interest in Americans betting on the FIFA World Cup spiked back in the early 2000s when the national team had that brilliant and unexpected run to the quarter-finals. Four years later the betting interest from North American on the FIFA World Cup hit new heights. So again, technology has made the world of sports a much more accessible place.

International betting in-play

Let’s say that you are in the UK and at 11 pm when things are quiet on the domestic front. Get online and you are likely going to see live in-play international betting options from leagues and competitions from the other side of the world. It’s not uncommon to find action from says Chile’s top flight for example or the latest cup game in Argentina. So you have those betting options right at hand.

This is the same for racing or if you fancy a bit of table tennis betting action from Japan. When you take a step back and assess the number of international betting markets that are out there, then you realise just how phenomenally immense it is. How crazy is it to think that there would be a flood of British punters who would wager thousands of pounds (collectively) on the Men’s College Basketball Finals?

In a very short amount of time, bookmakers and betting exchanges have broadened their scope and have placed sports and wager types outside of a traditional bookies purview a mere mouse click away from an adventurous punter. It adds for a fascinating overall product for punters because, at the end of the day, the choice is never a bad thing at all. Maybe you do want to go and explore the international Volleyball leagues, or even follow the snooker or F1 seasons which travel right across the world.

International bookmakers

Let’s not confuse the opportunities for betting on international markets of course with international bookmakers. There are rules in place. In the UK for example, to register and operate an account with a bookmaker who holds a UK licence, then you have to prove that you are a UK resident. You will need verification.

However, let’s take bet365 for example. They legally operate online and accept accounts from a lot of different countries around the world like Australia, India, Indonesia, Macedonia, Malta, South Korea and Ukraine. So the services can be used for residents of different countries because of licencing within the territories, however, they may not have the same access to all markets and promotions say as the UK has.

It is a bit of a complicated landscape is international betting. That is because individual countries hold their own rules and regulations about sports betting, which makes cross-border services some grey areas. Wherever a bookie wants to operate they will have to get a local licence to do so. But going back to Bet365 for example, if you are from Cyprus (a permitted country by the operator) and you want access, then you are free to do so.

International Betting

Generally if a bookmaker thinks, through your IP address, that you are trying to access their services from an unregulated territory, they will block you.

At the end of the day, while a VPN could circumnavigate that, but it’s not worth the hassle of trying to open an account from an unregulated territory. The reason that you won’t have legal protection is a big enough factor not to do so, along with potentially losing your money and even getting in trouble with the law. Probably worth a pass then.

There are further complications as well. There is a difference between countries which are regulated and unregulated. Neither of these would necessarily require a bookmaker to hold a licence with them. An unregulated market simply means that the territory doesn’t have specific regulations about online betting. In both instances, it wouldn’t be a smart move.

Then you have the flat out illegalities of countries which have laws in place to make online betting illegal.

Best international bookmakers

It is a complicated area so the only advice that we can suggest is to take your interest to a bookmaker with a licence in your territory. If one of those bookmakers happened to be one that has a long, established reputation then your interests are going to be much better protected.

If you are looking at UK based operators to use for your betting from abroad, then lean towards the major players. Think bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Betfair, Coral and William Hill. These have big preferences are more likely to offer their services to more countries than a recent start-up betting site is going to be. But, you just have to find an international betting site that operators legally in your territory.

A smaller world, bigger opportunities

So yes, the world has gotten smaller. Sports nowadays pretty much transcends international boundaries. You have NFL and MLB matches being played in the UK. You have the major European soccer teams all heading off to the USA and Asia for their summer breaks because of trying to increase their popularity in those highly profitable new markets.

This old puts everything into one big collection of a global betting bundle. It is what you will see at your bookie, a wealth of international sports betting.