The UK Gambling Commission has written to online sportsbooks, bookmakers and casinos telling them to block anyone with a UK IP address.
Already, Direct Bet and the Fairlay Bitcoin betting exchange have implemented this today.
It's outrageous.
Are Direct Bet and the Fairlay Bitcoin UK based?
If not, why are they blocking UK IPs?
I don't understand why everyone seems to be taking orders from the UK Gambling Commission all of a sudden without any explanation to end users.
Any more details on this would be appreciated.
Regardless of where the bookies are based, its customers are British. That's why they're only blocking UK IPs, and bitcoin sites are only following the other foreign bookmakers (188bet, sbobet, pinnacle) in leaving Britain since the new gambling laws require them to register under the UKGamingCommission's licensing system (and pay a hefty tax). The idea behind this is to protect British consumers apparently, though anyone who knows the first thing about betting knows you cannot win using British bookmakers alone. And I'd wager (no pun intnded) that there are fifa levels of corruption going on behind the scenes