How would you like to trade a market where you get large regular price swings every 10 minutes in the afternoon, seven days a week. A
market where all prices are set purely by supply and demand, few transaction costs, no middle men and you only pay commission if you win? Where you can freely act as a market maker and where you have direct market access and where you can create a spread for others to take?

Betfair has revolutionised the betting market and created an open platform for exchanging risk on sports events. This market is now viewed much more like a traditional financial risk market than an old fashioned betting market. Smart users have realised that there are huge opportunities on Betfair because they can buy and sell risk in much the same way they would in a normal financial market but without the burden of cost or the restricted access that is usually associated with traditional financial markets.

Click here to learn more

It appears to be a "feature" of AOL.

The problem is that AOL are routing some of their traffic via their US servers. To Betfair it looks like the connections are coming from the States. They would look at the IP address. Unfortunately using IE rather than the AOL browser is not going to make any difference. Suggest you get yourself a proper ISP. There are so many to choose from that there is no reason to stick with an ISP that makes life difficult in so many ways.

Kayak, can't do that for a while as I'm on a year's contract. I still cannot understand why the Betfair page takes so long to download and all the others don't. Also, I am not barred from using Betfair so that seems illogical too. Betfair have my documentation showing I am a UK resident and passport holder and that is rightly good enough for them.

I can't see how they can bar Blondie from trading. Surely he had to give them the UK personal documentation to sign up? Sounds like there's a jobsworth at Betfair.

Kayak

Bones above says at post 1466:

"Blondie, as I said in my earlier post, and Docproc confirms this, I use AOL as my ISP. I do not use AOL's browser to access the web. I minimise AOL and bring up Internet Explorer from the task bar. I don't have any problem with Betfair except that the Betfair website takes a ridiculous amount of time to load (about 60 seconds) compared to any other website (about 5 seconds). I have 2MB Broadband via AOL."

I think the time Betfair takes to load is a Betfair problem, not a browser specific problem.

Sorry, I was referring to Blondie's problem, not Bones'. The problem is just that Betfair bar ranges of IP addresses which are allocated to US companies and ISPs. I don't think that AOL always route via the US for every user, I guess it must vary depending on network issues. If Bones and Blondie can open a DOS window and type

tracert www.betfair.com

and post the output (to copy, highlight with the mouse and type Return, then paste as normal), we can confirm whether that is the issue.

Your problem, Bones, is likely to be to do with AOL's cache proxy, the program at AOL that saves them internet costs by caching pages accessed. In IE check Tools/Internet Options/Connections tab/select connection/Settings (if you are using a router the settings will be under LAN settings). If 'use a proxy server' is ticked, untick it. If it is not ticked (much more likely) then it is a 'transparent proxy' and you can do nothing about it.

Kayak, how do I open a DOS window? (it's been a long time!)

Start/Programs/Accessories/Command Prompt (or MS-DOS prompt, depending on your version of Windows).

Kayak, I've done the trace and after 14 lines of data the remaining 16 say "request timed out". I'd like to copy it but the mouse has no effect and a right click shows "copy" greyed out.

Next?

Clicking and dragging the mouse should highlight the text. Otherwise try clicking on the top left hand corner of the window, then Edit/Select All.

It doesn't work, Kayak. It highlights everything but typing Return just does that and DOS doesn't recognise the command. Nothing goes to the clipboard.

Therefore, no option but to hand type:

Tracing route to betfair.com [212.62.21.228]
Over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 26ms 27ms 19ms rt-lostb14.dial.aol.com [195.93.23.46]
2 23ms 19ms 19ms iptfarmlb-los-ve3.proxy.aol.com [195.93.17.62]
3 28ms 20ms 29ms 172.17.169.27
4 27ms 19ms 19ms pop1-loh.P2-0.atdn.net [66.185.136.229]
5 27ms 29ms 29ms bb1-loh-P5-0.atdn.net [66.185.136.224]
6 27ms 19ms 19ms pop2-loh.P0-0.atdn.net [66.185.136.241]
7 27ms 19ms 19ms so-6-0-0.gar2.London1.Level3.net [66.185.143.90]
8 27ms 29ms 19ms ge-6-2.core2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.131.182]
9 27ms 30ms 29ms CABLE-WIRE.c2.Level3.net [212.73.240.170]
10 26ms 29ms 19ms so-7-0-0.zcr1.lnt.cw.net [166.63.222.41]
11 28ms 29ms 19ms so-3-0-0.bcr1.lnd.cw.net [166.63.163.221]
12 26ms 29ms 29ms 194.177.179.9
13 27ms 19ms 29ms pos-0-0-ahr2.lo1.cw.net [166.63.161.130]
14 27ms 29ms 29ms csr02-ve240.lndn01.exodus.net [64.69.188.3]
15 * * * Request timed out
16 * * * Request timed out
17 * * * Request timed out
18 * * * Request timed out
19 * * * Request timed out
20 * * * Request timed out
21 * * * Request timed out
22 * * * Request timed out
23 * * * Request timed out
24 * * * Request timed out
25 * * * Request timed out
26 * * * Request timed out
27 * * * Request timed out
28 * * * Request timed out
29 * * * Request timed out
30 * * * Request timed out

Trace complete.

Very sorry, by typing Return I meant hit the Enter key :-(

Anyway your route shows that you are not leaving the UK. It will be interesting to compare with Blondie's if he is able to do one.

This is mine:

Tracing route to betfair.com [212.62.21.228]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms ADSLRouter [192.168.2.1]
2 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms lo0-plusnet.pth-ag3.plus.net [195.166.128.64]
3 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms gi1-2.802.pth-gw4.plus.net [84.92.2.14]
4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 195.50.117.169
5 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms ge-1-0.core2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.131.14]

6 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms CABLE-WIRE.c2.Level3.net [212.73.240.170]
7 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms so-7-0-0-zcr1.lnt.cw.net [166.63.222.41]
8 10 ms 10 ms 50 ms so-3-0-0-bcr1.lnd.cw.net [166.63.163.221]
9 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 194.177.179.9
10 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms pos-0-0-ahr2.lo1.cw.net [166.63.161.130]
11 10 ms 10 ms 20 ms csr02-ve240.lndn01.exodus.net [64.69.188.3]
12 * * * Request timed out.

Scrip

whatever they did during the outage yesterday hasnt done much good - refresh playing up at my end again

Steve,

I've just given up. AB Pro freezing also. That's it for the day (and crap it was too).

Afternoon all - hope you all did'nt miss the 3000% profit to be had on the Dubai tennis within the last hour, S. Mirza odds from 5 - 55 - 1.66, where else can one make a profit like this in 1 hour? wow. Share trading/ spread betting's dead! imho....

Hi all,

Bones, i have just spoken to betfair and they said that if i send them a photocopy of my driving licence,a utility bill,and the front of the card i'll be using by fax then they will set up my account for me no problem(as i am on AOL also). They said that they will be starting to ask people for proof soon anyway.

Kayak, thanks. Yours seem to score perfect 10s!!

Copper. That is what I had to do to open an account. I didn't think there was a choice to be honest :)

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\user1>
C:\Documents and Settings\user1>tracert www.betfair.com

Tracing route to betfair.com [212.62.21.228]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 13 ms 14 ms 15 ms rt-lostf13.dial.aol.com [195.93.23.173]
2 14 ms 14 ms 13 ms iptfarmlf-los-ve3.proxy.aol.com [195.93.17.190]

3 15 ms 14 ms 15 ms 172.17.169.92
4 16 ms 16 ms 16 ms pop2-loh-P2-0.atdn.net [66.185.143.77]
5 16 ms 16 ms 14 ms so-6-0-0.gar2.London1.Level3.net [66.185.143.90]

6 18 ms 15 ms 18 ms ge-6-1.core2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.131.150
]
7 17 ms 15 ms 16 ms CABLE-WIRE.c2.Level3.net [212.73.240.170]
8 16 ms 15 ms 18 ms so-7-0-0-zcr1.lnt.cw.net [166.63.222.41]
9 17 ms 16 ms 15 ms so-3-0-0-bcr1.lnd.cw.net [166.63.163.221]
10 16 ms 16 ms 16 ms 194.177.179.9
11 16 ms 16 ms 15 ms pos-0-0-ahr2.lo1.cw.net [166.63.161.130]
12 230 ms 17 ms 17 ms csr01-ve240.lndn01.exodus.net [64.69.188.2]
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 *

Bones, the Tracert tool on Windows 2000 seems to produce each number rounded to the nearest 10ms, I've never worked out why. An ADSL modem/router is faster than a USB modem, which probably accounts for your higher numbers.

Good trace Copper and faster than Bones'. You are also not going via the US and should not therefore have problems.