For many people who like to explore alternative investment opportunities Betfair can be an attraction. Unfortunately, for many their governments deny access to this service. I find this both frustrating and disturbing. Why should someone else decide what I spend my money on. Trying to make an additional income is hard enough. Denying access to a perfectly respectable opportunity can only rub salt in the wounds.

And yet, not is all lost. No matter how draconian laws are there are generally perfectly legal ways to circumvent them. That is also true for Betfair.

In an earlier post I showcased Full Time Betting Income as a steady way to provide a secondary income. This service uses Betfair so anyone who can’t access the service is missing out. In the UK it is perfectly legal to use the betting exchange so if you can look as though you are using the site from here then there is no problem.

The best way to achieve this is to use a VPS service that has its servers based in the UK. I spent some considerable time exploring the options available for such a service. Whilst many of them seemed to provide a reliable service they did cost quite a lot per month. This was compounded by the fact that you need to use a Windows based service which turns out to be more expensive than a Linux based one.

I’d nearly given up looking, then just when I wasn’t expecting it I came across Blue Light Host VPS. Not knowing too much about them I was a little hesitant but at £18 a month (about $30) the price was the best I could find. They do offer a seven day trial so you can try before you buy. Note though that you are not automatically transferred to a full plan at the end of the trial (this was a bit of a disappointment to be honest as it was more hassle). However, the service itself is fine and I’m very happy with it in the six months I’ve been using it.

So, we can now access Betfair but what if you are in a time zone that doesn’t make it easy to follow the system at the required time or perhaps you have a job that stops you having access at the right time.

One very affordable answer to this is Betsender. This is a bot that will work 24/7 on your behalf once you load in the data. Unlike many other services like this you have just a one-off payment of £83 to pay. As an added bonus you can use as many ‘instances’ of the bot as you like so the flexibility of the software is very good. It allows you to use a range of staking plans and has both demo and live modes. It works well on the VPS and I’ve had no problems. You can also use a spreadsheet import if using more than one account for placing wagers.

At the moment I use Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to access the VPS but other services such as logmein can also be used. Going one step further you can use Hide My Ass to cloak your internet movements.

So, if you’ve ever wanted to use Betfair but felt it wasn’t possible then think again, where there’s a will there’s a way!