It is standard practice for betting sites to keep a note of a user’s I.P. address. Though this might seem a little ‘Big Brother’, the reality is that they do it in order to ensure that customers aren’t signing up for multiple accounts, as well as to keep a track of the accounts of winning players so that they can limit them.
Not only that, but bookies also use the likes of cookies to keep track of your movements away from their site, using programmes like iesnare and ReputationManager to keep a track of what you’re up to.
Obviously, many people will be concerned by this breach of their privacy, but there isn’t a huge amount that you can do about it in the immediate. In theory, companies only have the right to track the bets that you’ve placed and to make sure that you’re obeying the terms and conditions that you signed up to when you took out your account with them in the first place.
GDPR rules means you have the right to be forgotten by a betting site if you choose to close your account. If, however, you want to actively bet with them they have the right through their own terms and for responsible gambling reasons to track what you do and when you do it.
In reality, though, they do so much more than that and you would be well placed to make use of the likes of a Virtual Private Network to ensure your own privacy. The issue is many betting sites will block you when using a VPN, some of this is to do with you not betting out of the country and some of it is to do with being able to track you.
I.P. Addresses Explained
Your I.P. address is a unique set of numbers that identifies the device that you use to connect to the internet. Anything that is online will have an I.P. address, which can then be tracked and followed accordingly.
Standing for Internet Protocol, this is a set of rules that governs the format of the data that is sent via the internet, or even via a local network. They are the identifiers that allow information to be sent between your device and other devices online, given the fact that the internet needs to be able to differentiate between them.
I.P. addresses use a series of numbers, with each number in the address ranging from 0 to 255. Because there are four numbers in each I.P. address, that means that they will range from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255. They are not random, instead being mathematically produced and assigned by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.
That is a division of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which was established in 1998 in order to maintain the Internet’s security and to allow everyone to be able to use it as securely as possible.
I.P. addresses are assigned by Internet Service Providers, with all of your internet activity going through ISPs, which route things back to you using your I.P. address. Your I.P. address can change, such as by turning your modem off and back on again.
If you’re out and about you will get new I.P. addresses when you use external networks, which are assigned to you by the network that you’re using when on the move. There are different types of I.P. addresses, including consumer addresses, private addresses and public addresses, whilst each website also has its own I.P. address.
How Companies Track Your I.P. Address
Knowing that they track you is one thing, but knowing how it is that they do so is something else entirely. When your connect to a website, the network that you’re on sends out an information packet, including your I.P. address. The website accepts this packet, giving them your information.
In the majority of cases, this is where the tracking of your information stops. Internet Service Providers do keep track of your I.P. address, though, so in some cases that information can be shared with other people for numerous reasons.
Your I.P. address can only provide limited information to the websites that receive it as part of the information that you send them, so they instead keep track of you using things like cookies.
Betting sites do use your I.P. address, though, making a note of it for numerous different reasons that we’re going to come on to. What they can find out is things like your area that you live in, the ISP that provides your internet and whether or not you are on some sort of blacklist because of previous online behaviour.
Why Betting Sites Track Your I.P. Address
There are numerous things that bookmakers and other online betting sites are concerned about when it comes to their customers. One of those things is bonus abuse, which happens when someone has more than one account in order to take advantage of offers on things like matched deposits.
One of the ways in which they stop this from happening is by tracking someone’s I.P. address, blocking accounts being opened from the same one. This can obviously be hugely problematic in instances such as people living in a shared house and using the same computer as each other.
They also often do it because they’re required to, usually for auditing purposes. There is also a requirement for most companies to ensure that the people that are playing games and gambling on their sites are actually located in the country that they say they are, not least because of licensing requirements.
As a result, I.P. address tracking helps to ensure that the location of the user is correct. By tracking I.P. addresses, companies can also send you targeted advertising, which isn’t always welcome for a lot of online users.
How To Avoid Being Tracked
One of the best ways to avoid being tracked by an online gambling company is by using a Virtual Private Network. This essentially tells the website that you’re signing on to that you’re located somewhere other than where you’re actually located, including giving them a false I.P. address.
Unfortunately, this contravenes the terms and conditions of most online betting sites, so you run the risk of having your account closed down if they work out that this is what you have been doing.
If you live in shared accommodation, one of the ways that you can get around a gambling company stopping you from opening a new account using the shared computer is by signing up using your mobile phone that is connected to the phone network.
You can even connect a computer to a mobile network in order to get a new I.P. address, given the fact that most smartphones allow you to share your network nowadays. These are basic things, but a good way of avoiding falling foul of the tracked I.P. address conundrum.