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VPN for Online Gambling

Have you ever tried to sign up to an online casino only to be met with a message along the lines of "The Casino is not available in your country", even when you are residing in a country where the online casino gambling is perfectly legal?

If this has ever happened to you, then it could well be due to where you are currently located and that is especially the case if you happen to live close to a border between two countries, such as the border between Canada and the United States of America.

So how can it be if you are living on the Canadian side of the Canadian/US border, when you try to sign up with a casino that permits Canadian players, that you are forbidden from joining a Mega Moolah casino? Who is at fault here?

Unfortunately, many people tend to blame the online casinos for this issue assuming they hold the wrong data for them, but in actual fact, the real reason why you may be being turned down by casinos such as these is due to how your Internet Protocol (IP) address is assigned by your Internet Service Provider.

Now, don't worry too much about all this terminology as we will explain everything as we go through the article, so to clarify, your IP address is a collection of numbers which relates to where your account is actually stored on your Internet Service Providers servers.

And the issue with that, is that your ISP servers may well be based many miles away from where your home address is.

Now for most people, this is not a problem but if you live close to a border and your ISP has their server located over the border, then your IP address will be reporting that you are based inside that other country. Hence although you are a Canadian player, on Canadian soil, your ISP server has assigned an IP address that seems to show you are based in the US.

That is the reason why your application to sign up with the casino may have been turned down.

Of course, if you want to to play Mega Moolah but you cannot because your IP address says otherwise, that can be extremely frustrating. Fortunately nowadays, there is an easy answer and that comes in the form of a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

What is a Virtual Private Network and how does it work?

In its most simplest form, a Virtual Private Network is a service that you can connect to from your PC which usually incurs a small monthly fee. In return for that, the data that you transmit from your PC or Tablet or Smartphone goes first to your selected and encrypted VPN server. You then connect to any website via the VPN, which can be based anywhere in the world you choose (although the further your VPN is away from your physical location, the greater the impact this may have on the speed of your Internet services).

As a result of using the VPN, your Internet Protocol Address will change from that provided by your Internet Service Provider, to that of the VPN. So in our example, this would mean the player on the Canadian border denied access to a Mega Moolah casino, could simply use a VPN to access the casino and log in and play, provided they used a VPN address based in Canada! There's absolutely nothing wrong with that if your residence is in fact in Canada.

There are several other benefits that come from using a Virtual Private Network to access the Internet and they are:

  • They improve the security of your connection and increase protection against you and your data being hacked, even when using a public WiFi hotspot.
  • Your Internet activity will remain private from your ISP and authorities - depending of course which VPN service you use.
  • You can access services that have been denied to you based on your current location as provided by your ISP.

Are VPN's legal?

Yes, in almost every country around the globe, citizens have a right to privacy both in their day to day life and also on the Internet. As such VPN's are legal and there are a large number of companies vying for business from many different people, many of whom require the advantages of a VPN for a wide number of reasons. Many businesses use VPNs for security, such as news agencies, journalists, business travellers, CEOs and other high ranking business people, and so on.

Can I use a VPN for gambling purposes?

Yes, you can, provided of course that you are still gambling within the laws of your country and not using the VPN to engage in gambling activities that are otherwise illegal in your place of residence. This is very important.

So, in the example above, if our Canadian customer chose to sign up to a VPN service, they could then log in to a VPN server based in Canada, rather than the ISP server based in the US. This server would then facilitate them being able to play in the casino that they want to play in and would allow them to play the games that were otherwise unavailable via their ISP.

There are many places in the world where servers for a local ISP will be placed over the border in another country and this can produce a large number of problems for customers in one country that connect to the internet via a server in another. We used the Canada and US border as an example but there are plenty of other examples all over Europe where customers in one country cannot access casinos they should be able to simply because their ISP is either based outside of their homeland, or their IP address is falsely detected.

In situations such as this, the small fee you pay each month to join a VPN makes perfect sense, especially if you are someone who enjoys gambling and particularly wants to play Mega Moolah. The other benefits you receive, such as improved security and encryption of your data are also great reasons to consider using a VPN.

Which VPN do we recommend?

There are several VPN services on offer but not all are equal. We have tested NordVPN and ExpressVPN - two of the most popular VPN services due to their aggressive marketing strategies. Sure there may be websites that contain great reviews by hundreds of "happy" NordVPN and ExpressVPN users, but as we all know those are fake, or given 5-stars by people who are no experts in the matter. In fact experts in the know avoid both of these VPNs because they store connection logs, have fake server locations, or non-existent support, and are generally full of leaky holes.

For example, using ExpressVPN, we connected to the UK server and opened Google.com and ended up at Google.ae which is the United Arab Emirates! So it seems to be a bit of a hit-or-miss with ExpressVPN. We stopped using NordVPN completely as they have non-existent support and their servers are super slow.

We actually purchased a dedicated IP from NordVPN and after a month of two it just basically stopped loading any websites. The NordVPN support could not fix it and basically they just stopped responding to any of our emails - because they ran out of bullshit. Our support ticket was never resolved at NordVPN, it just closed by itself and we reactivated it a few times to never hear from them again. Just unbelievably crappy service! We definitely do NOT recommend NordVPN based on our experience. ExpressVPN, which may be a bit faster, is a hit-or-miss because the server locations are totally fake. So that is also a crap service one straight out of the box.

To check your IP location simply go to our Where to Play page and it will tell your location, or you can google "what's my ip address" and you will find several links to websites that will display your IP location, or click here: https://www.perfect-privacy.com/check-ip/

So what alternatives are there to the highly promoted VPNs like NordVPN and ExpressVPN which are heavily promote on the internet? Well, glad you asked, because there's a Swiss company called Perfect Privacy https://www.perfect-privacy.com that is for those who want, well, "perfect privacy". Perfect Privacy offers 256 bit security and it does not log user activity, plus there's many other important features that any VPN users will appreciate. Just check their website for the details! You'll never find any of that information on NordVPN or ExpressVPN! There's another Swiss company called Golden Frog that runs VyprVPN, which we have not tried, so can't say much about it except that they do keep your traffic log files for 30 days after-which they are deleted.

Note that Switzerland is one of the best jurisdictions for privacy - an important consideration when purchasing a VPN service. Always check where the VPN service is headquartered before buying.

Note that we are not affiliated with Perfect Privacy, or VyprVPN, so this is article is based purely on our many years of experience in using VPNs. You will find plenty of excellent 5-star reviews of NordVPN and ExpressVPN, but those reviews are bullshit -- and that blunt analysis is the truth. You can do much better!