Is my ISP re-routing me ?

Somerset

My ISP is the Post Office, perfect up to now. Yesterday about 8pm I tried to log on to Betfair, a betting exchange, and got the message ''Our software has detected that you may be accessing the Betfair website from a country that Betfair does not accept bets from.
You may view the Betfair site, but you will not be able to open an account, login or place any bets.'' This notice appeared for about two hours, then back to normal. Today, about 8pm, same thing happens.

I e-mailed Betfair yesterday re the problem and the response was ''It is possible that your ISP is routing you through a country where Betfair is unable to take bets'' - Note possible.

I've checked on http://www.123myip.co.uk/ and it says :
123myip.co.uk shows you the current IP address of your online connection quickly and easily.
(Also works with a proxy.1)

Your OS: Windows VistaYour Browser: Internet Explorer 9.0Location: United Kingdom

I'm not sure if this proves that Betfair are wrong and I'm not being re-routed through a foreign country, or not ?

Any thoughts or comments welcome.

kwikbreaks

IMO it's unlikely that the PO (which is just a white label BT product) is using an offshore proxy. IP blocks change hands. It's possible that you've currently got an IP that was bought recently from overseas and Betfair's geo location checking is out of date.

You may get a fresh IP if you power down your router and restart it in which case the problem may go away.

bod1467

Alternatively do a tracert to the betfair site when all is OK, and again when you have the problem. Are they different?

Somerset

bod1467 wrote: »

Alternatively do a tracert to the betfair site when all is OK, and again when you have the problem. Are they different?

You mean http://www.123myip.co.uk/ as above ? It gives exactly the same information when I can access Betfair and when I can't ie when Betfair thinks I'm overseas.

Somerset

kwikbreaks wrote: »

You may get a fresh IP if you power down your router and restart it in which case the problem may go away.

I'll do that overnight. I know it'll give me a new IP address. When I've done it in the past it changes slightly, not massively, but it might be enough to do the trick.

Somerset

kwikbreaks wrote: »

IMO it's unlikely that the PO (which is just a white label BT product) is using an offshore proxy. IP blocks change hands. It's possible that you've currently got an IP that was bought recently from overseas and Betfair's geo location checking is out of date.

Just occured to me kwikbreaks, I haven't powered down my router for a good while. If I go into Betfair, it shows successful log-in's over a period - my IP address has been constant for a long period. So it hasn't been recently acquired by the PO.

I don't know enough about this subject. My IP address is constant. But is it possible the PO has been re-routing for two hours a day ? Alternatively, if it is Betfair's geo location checking at fault surely it would be blocking me all the time not just those two hours ?

bod1467

Somerset wrote: »

You mean http://www.123myip.co.uk/ as above ? It gives exactly the same information when I can access Betfair and when I can't ie when Betfair thinks I'm overseas.

No. I mean open a Command window (CMD in Start | Run) and then type in tracert the.betfair.address. Do that when all is OK and well all is not - are the trace results the same or different?

(My hunch is that the routing is being sent via a proxy during peak periods to restrict certain protocols - like P2P - and so Betfair are also seeing the proxy IP and determining this as not being from the UK. I may be completely wrong though).

kwikbreaks

If the same IP is giving different results at different times then it probably is a proxy although I still doubt that it is offshore - the increased latency would bring howls of protest from any gamers using the service.

bod1467

It might not be offshore, but the Betfair servers might not think that.

kwikbreaks

Yes whatever the actual cause it will almost certainly be a Betfair geolocation error rather than offshore routing causing the problem