[Diginom]

Such an obvious question, but maybe not so obvious. The main explanation could be - countries authorities enforce online books to do so. But some books are so overzealous in it, that it is worth to research to understand it better.
Let us take Germany and Austria. In 2011, betfair exchange has restricted Germany, and it was a beginning of the great restriction orgy. A few years later betfair has also banned Austria.
Betdaq did the same in 2014 or 2015.
Matchbook did the same a few years later. (Matchbook is a restriction champion, but I could not find the official list of banned countries on their website. Maybe matchbook is ashamed =)
Pinnacle has left the german market in 2016. But Pinnacle still accepts accounts from Austria. Pinnacle is keeping the list of his banned countries up-to-date. These are all "big" european countries (Germany, France, Spain, UK, Italy and some others). But also Sudan, Syrien and North Korea. And especially weird - the Netherlands. Pinnacle has headquarter and is licensed in Curacao, which is a part of Netherlands. But you are not allowed to have a pinnacle account, if you live in Curacao or other part of the Netherlands! Actually, Pinnacle has also Malta license, which should enable to operate in the whole EU, but the most EU-countries are restricted.

Why are bookies so meticulous in restricting? Are they sometimes interested in it (if they, for example, register - germans are winning too much, better we bann the whole land)?
Another reason could be - some people claim the lost money back with an argument - it has been illegal betting. If the lawyers of some country can push it through, then it is understandable why the books restrict. Is all the suffering probably because of such unfair losers?

[ronald]

1. Don't want their operatives to get pinched when traveling in countries where offshore gambling is not regulated.
2. Don't want their bank accounts frozen by countries where offshore gambling is not regulated.
3. Want to position themselves for legal entry into certain markets down the road.
4. Don't want to accept players from countries that have a high percentage of scammers.

Probably other reasons, but those immediately come to mind.

[Diginom]

I understand, the bookies want to position themselves as fully law-abiding.

But why do they not only declare "we don't accept accounts from the country X", but also investigate, check IPs to find out people from country X, which pretend to be somewhere else?
That is what I mean with overzealous and meticulous.
In 2011, as betfair banned german accounts, many traders just changed their accounts addresses to fake addresses in Austria. Betfair has not accepted it, a few days later all these accounts were frozen.
But if somebody provides a fake address, that is his reponsibility, the bookie has no risk. The bookie can always say to any country's authority - "Mr. Y told us, that he is a resident of another country, so punish him, not us".
Therefore I think, bookies have sometimes their own reasons to restrict countries, they are not really forced to.

[aak114]

But that's not the way it works. The countries will hold the sportsbooks responsible to set up the right controls to prevent, in your case, people in Germany from using the website.

It's the same reason why a bar in the US will turn you away with a bad fake ID - because it's their responsibility to not have anyone underage in the bar... they can't just use the excuse that they showed us a clearly fake ID.

[Diginom]

In case of bar, it can be closed, if they systematically let underage in. In case of bookie, it is already "closed" in the related country. What can be worse than that? Germany can not do anything to betfair, because betfair is already excluded from the german market. Maybe it would not care anybody, if betfair had accepted those Austria accounts. But betfair had investigated and frozen accounts on its own initiative. And that is what other bookies often do.

[aak114]

Germany can absolutely go after them if German residents are using the platform. They wouldn't close the accounts if they didn't feel there was a threat to leaving them open and allowing Germans to wager

[Diginom]

Germany can absolutely go after them if German residents are using the platform

I don't know, what would be the risk of betfair? They can anytime close the exposed account, pay it out and say - we have nothing more to do with it. Either way, they did not even check this option.

Another example of such bookie's cowardice is Pinnacle with his Malta license. Actually, it enables Pinnacle to act in the whole EU. I mean, the European Court decided it many years ago. The national laws want the national monopolies. But they are subordinate to european right. So, does Pinnacle insist on his right to operate in all EU-countries? Of course not, it prefers to withdraw from the most of them.

[Ruifgalmeida]

Pinnacle, Betfair stopped fighting EU individual countries, probably their legal lawyers said it is not worthy.
True is that any European who wants to bet with them will find a way.
One day there will be a unified European market thats for sure

[playerBM]

will Pinaccle enter the US market again?

[Limited]

Cryptoeconomy (DeFi, ETH, BTC, Stable coins, decentralized platforms) will probably become the new ultimate off-shore. It will probably have a similar impact to betting industry like internet had to the commerce.

[Ruifgalmeida]

will Pinaccle enter the US market again?

No, reduced juice and legal are completely far apart

[jazzmonkey]

I think that is too simplistic an approach.

Publicly available VPNs are dangerous to use in the first place as anyone can use them for any purpose and so regularly appear in blacklists and secondly bookmakers are often aware that they are VPNs, which creates more problems than it solves.

Just because you can pretend that you are from a particular country doesn't fix the KYC issue either, still need to provide address/photo/dna sample before you are allowed past the gate.

[Judge Crater]

Some countries probably are just not worth taking as the sportsbooks already had a bad experience with their countrymen. Anyone who goes to bet at a USA facing sportsbook when they have plenty of options at home are probably not inclined to lose.