Bovada review

• Overall info
• Bovada Sportsbook Review
• Bovada Casino review
• Bovada Poker
• Customer Service
• Bovada Bonuses
• Deposit and withdrawal
• Special Betting Options
• Bovada mobile
• Our verdict
• Customer Review

Bovada is one of the most recognizable gambling brands in the United States, so our Bovada review will provide you with updated information for 2021. We will check their sports betting offer, casino products, speak about the famous Bovada Poker room, and give our unbiased opinion about the customer service, desktop and mobile websites performance, and other details we find important: Bovada minimum withdrawal limits and maximum payouts, banking systems, sports betting services, gambling license, and more.

Overall info

Bovada became the most visited gambling website in the USA in 2021, but it also accepts users from Canada and Mexico. The main customer pool comes from the United States, but you can not register at Bovada if you reside in New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Nevada, or Maryland: gambling in these states is only legal if a website holds a local license.

However, the Bovada. Lv website will not accept New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Maryland, or Nevada residents as the gambling policies of these states require having a special certification from local states’ authorities.

All gambling activities are located in Bovada.LV domain; there is also a Bovada.Com website, containing information about the company and links to Bovada. LV. The site is translated into three languages: English, Chinese, and Spanish.

Bovada History

Although the Bovada website was launched in 2011, its history has started long before, when Calvin Ayre established a software company producing tools for digital bookmakers in 1997. In 2000, the company was acquired by eSportz, who later created their sports betting site called Bodog. Bodog became very popular worldwide and opened various departments in Asia and Great Britain, but in 2011, the company was accused of the nonpayment of debt and US gambling law violation. Thus, Ayre decided to officially leave the American gambling market but instead launched a brand-new platform, Bovada. All Bodog US customers became part of Bovada and soon the new site became one of the most reputable gambling sites in the United States.

Bovada official website

Bookmaker License

Bovada’s licensing is a pretty contradictory matter: although it is considered as one of the most reliable and safe sports betting and casino sites in the United States, they do not hold any local licenses from the US gambling authorities. Before 2016, Bovada was licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, but after the Commission changed its policies, the company surrendered the Kahnawake license. For some time, Bovada operated without any license, but at the moment they are officially approved by the Curacao EGaming commission under the license number 1668/JAZ.

How to create a Bovada account?

To register at Bovada, you must press the red button Join in the top right corner of the page. You will see a registration form asking you to enter your full name as per passport, date of birth, indicate your phone number, email address, and zip code. This step also involves choosing between USD and Bitcoin currencies. If you have a referral email address, you must enter it in the dedicated field. Press the Register button and receive a verification code sent to your mobile number. After you verify the phone number, your account will be ready for your first deposit and eligible for all sports betting, casino gaming, and poker activities.

There are no quicker options, like signing up via social networks, but the overall process is still prompt enough.

Registration panel

According to Bovada’s terms and conditions, you must send your personal details to the customer support agents to verify your account. This procedure might be skipped, but if Bovada requests, you will have to send your photo ID and proof of your residential address, for instance, a utility bill with your name on it. The verification process takes up to forty-eight hours.

Bovada Sportsbook Review

It is not surprising that the North America-facing sportsbook will have an extensive offer for all-American sports like Football, Baseball, or Basketball. However, it was a pleasure to find out Bovada does not limit its action line by the sports of this kind: you can find various disciplines popular globally, including Horse Racing, Cricket, Boxing, eSports, Ice Hockey, Tennis, and more — overall about twenty sports and non-sporting events like Politics and Entertainment.

Bovada sportsbook has a very convenient layout, with quick access to the bet slip and a comfortable view of the events and available markets. The bet slip is divided into two tabs showing open and past bets. On the top of the page, you will find the most popular current events and live betting odds; to check the other lines, you must simply click on the icon standing for a particular discipline. You can choose between three popular odds formats: American, Decimal, and Fractional.

On average, the maximum bet varies from $500 to $1,500.

Pre Match line

The pre-match coverage can satisfy most punters: the number of bet types is impressive when it comes to most sports, and especially the most prestigious tournaments. For instance, a Soccer match can involve more than a hundred and fifty markets, a Baseball game — up to seventy, a Basketball event — approximately forty. Besides, you can wager on Season Props; for instance, there are available bets on the Next Regular Season MVP, Coach of the Year, etc. within the NBA league.

When you choose a sports discipline, you can easily check all events and leagues with published markets using a drop-down list. For instance, the American Football coverage is not limited by the NFL: you can also find the odds for CFL and College Football, and the list of the betting categories may look as follows:

• NFL;
• CFL;
• NFL Season Player Props;
• NFL Season Props;
• NFL Futures;
• NFL Specials;
• College Football;
• College Season Props;
• CFL Specials;
• NFL Team Win Totals.

Bovada obviously does its best to provide the users with good coverage of eSports.

Bet line

Thus, you can wager on the most popular cyber disciplines: Dota 2, Call of Duty, League of Legends, Rainbow Six, Valorant, Overwatch, Starcraft, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The number of available markets can reach twenty or more which is significantly better than many bookies usually offer. For instance, a Call of Duty League tournament may have the following line:

• Money Line;
• Spread;
• Map 1- Map 2 Match Betting;
• Props: Correct Score.

Live Betting

Bovada live betting section is less saturated but still offers a nice range of available events with various markets. For instance, you can find decent Ice Hockey offers with about forty bet types as follows:

• Draw No Bet;
• Spread First Half;
• Spread: Second Half;
• Total Goals;
• Game Props;
• Match Result and Both Teams To Score;
• Highest Scoring Half;
• Team A to Keep a Clean Sheet;
• Match Bet Plus Totals;
• Goal Props: Team to Score the 2nd Goal, Even/Odd goals, Exact Goals Scored, etc.

It is possible to see more or less similar lines in terms of market variety within Soccer, Baseball, or Basketball leagues.

Live betting

However, there are things that could be improved.

It would be convenient to have live statistics, live streaming, or visual animation to monitor the games you are betting on; all that you get at Bovada are the signs showing the odds fluctuation.

Bovada cricket betting

Cricket line is one of the strongest points of Bovada: they cover many important cricket events and offer up to a hundred markets for a single tournament which is significantly better than many bookies include to their lines. Among the events, you can wager on are the Indian Premier League, T20 Vitality Blast, The Hundred, and The Hundred Women, European Cricket Series, SLC Invitational League, and more. The markets you can see in a Bovada cricket line can be the following:

• Money Line;
• First Innings;
• Who Will Win The Toss;
• First Ball Outcome;
• Method of the 1st Wicket;
• Double Chance;
• Who Will Lead After 1st Innings;
• Will A Century Be Scored In The 1st Innings;
• Any batsman to score 50 or more;
• Various Player Props, like Top Bowler, or Top Batsman;
• Total Runs;
• Man of the Match, and more.

Horses betting

Bovada features a large racebook covering races worldwide: the United Kingdom, the USA, Australia, Ireland, and more. Among the top events available for betting at Bovada are Del Mar, Saratoga, Arlington Park, and the Breeders’ Cup. Most races involve Win, Place, and Show bets, Exacta, Trifecta, Superfecta, and Pick 3. Although horse racing is not the main focus of Bovada, there are still many various options; you can find Horse Futures and Props weekly to wager at fixed odds. The main page shows you the next five races and the trending races of the week.

Betting Odds

We would not call Bovada a leading bookmaker in terms of betting odds: there are more or less competitive offers for Soccer and American Football with a margin of about 4%, but such a percentage is suggested for the top-class events. Speaking about non-mainstream games, the margin can exceed the industry average of 5% and vary from 6% to 7%.

Such sports as Ice Hockey, Tennis, or Baseball are also maintained on the average level with a margin of about 5%-6%; the other disciplines usually come with a 93% payout.

Bovada Casino review

Bovada cooperates with three prestigious software companies: Betsoft, Rival, and Real Time Gaming and features a large casino library with various slots, progressive jackpots, card and table games, including the live dealer tables.

The casino section looks very easy to use, but unfortunately, there is no search by a gaming provider. You can still find the games by their titles or choose one from various selections offered by Bovada. It is possible to bookmark your favorite games, and check the most played and last played titles with quick access to them. On the right side of the casino section, you can check the jackpots leaderboards and monitor the Leaderboards schedule.

Slots

The slots are divided into classical and progressive games; the library includes new and famous traditional titles. Among the top popular slots are the following:

• A Night With Cleo progressive jackpot;
• Caesar’s Empire;
• Cyberpunk City;
• Delicious Candies;
• Aztec Treasures;
• Demi Gods.

Casino games

The progressive jackpots collection does not exceed thirty titles, but new ones are added regularly. The rest of the library consists of the standard five and three-reel fruit machines, and modern video slots and the overall choice is pretty limited by a few providers, so you will not find such big names as Starburst, Mega Moolah, or any Megaways slots. However, you can opt for table games instead: the collection is also pretty modest, but still includes different variants of a single activity. To be precise, you can opt for the following casino entertainment:

• Blackjack: eight titles, including Classic Blackjack, Classic Single Deck Blackjack, European Blackjack, Perfect Pairs, and more;
• Roulette: Classic American Roulette, Classic European Roulette, etc.;
• Video Poker: Caribbean Hold’em, Caribbean Stud Poker, Classic Tri Card Poker, Pai Gow Poker;
• Dice Games: Roll The Dice and Craps;
• Baccarat, Andar Bahar, and other table games.

Live Casino

The live casino section is divided into four categories: Blackjack, Roulette, Super Six, and Baccarat. The number of games is not large but each option includes different table limits, so there are still variants to choose from:

• Live Blackjack: twenty-four tables; there are two tables with 99,5% payout, several Unlimited players, and Unlimited Bet Behind options. The stakes vary from $5 as a minimum amount to $2,500;
• Live Roulette: two American and two European live dealer roulette options; the stakes vary from $1 to $3,000;
• Live Baccarat: two options, the limits vary from $5 to $2,500;
• Super Six: two tables.

The live casino library is small and does not allow you to opt for the most traditional and familiar tables from Playtech or Evolution Gaming but all games load quickly and we have not found any significant cons in Bovada live dealer gaming offer except a pretty poor choice. They compensate for it though by offering a large poker room with multiple activity types.

Live dealers

Bovada Poker

Bovada Poker room is powered by the Pai Wang Luo network, one of the largest poker networks, operating globally in more than ten countries. Its customer pool is comparable with the PokerStars network, so you will always find suitable tables and opponents whenever you enter the room. However, the last statement is mainly true for recreational players, as professionals are not very welcome at Bovada Poker. The main reason against using Bovada poker room for professional gaming is their anonymous gameplay: you can not see the opponents’ names which makes the usage of any long-term tracking tools impossible. However, you can use the Heads Up Rematch feature, which will return you and your opponent to a mutual table in the next game so that you can play against each other once more.

Speaking about games, you can opt for Omaha and Texas Hold’em cash games and tournaments. Cash games selection involves micro stakes tables with big blinds from $2 and high-roller options with $200 buy-ins. The minimum small blinds amount is larger than some other poker rooms can offer, but the choice is still diverse.

One of the Bovada Poker room perks is the interface of the downloadable software and its special features. Most players value the quick performance and fast downloading of screens and user-friendly navigation, convenient for everyone including the very beginners; the on-the-go experience is available without any dedicated poker apps and you can simply use your mobile browser. The special services of both desktop and mobile versions include:

• Quick Seat: you can start playing within a second as soon as you register in an app;
• Live Chat with the other players;
• Zone Poker: an option allowing you to play at several tables simultaneously; you are switched between the tables automatically during the folding time;
• All-In Percentage: a bar showing the percentage of winning probability; the bar appears when a player goes all-in;
• Clear design: all tables clearly show the actions so nobody will get confused about the game’s stage.

Besides, all tables are customizable: you can change your card’s design or how the table will look like. There are also language settings: it is possible to switch between English, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, and Thai.

The players who want to improve their poker skills will appreciate the Hand History Viewer, available for all Cash Games, MTT, and Sit And Go tournaments.

Customer Service

Bovada’s customer support is available 24/7: you can reach them via live chat, phone, or email. To check the customer service quality, we sent a couple of messages via the chat and were pleased to receive quick replies to our questions: it did not take longer than a minute to contact the customer support representative.

The emails may be responded to within one day, so we do not recommend this method if you have any urgent issues.

Before you contact customer support, you can take a look at the FAQ section in the Bovada Help Center. It contains many articles related to the most essential points like deposits, withdrawals, accounts, betting rules, bet types, and more; there are very comprehensive explanations concerning various betting options and strategies. The articles may contain video instructions or detailed screenshots; it all shows much care about customer convenience.

Still, to keep our review totally fair, we found several complaints about the customer service: some users claim they had to wait too long before the representatives contacted them regarding their payout requests or verification process. We can not deny the possibility of a human factor, though, and can suppose that the overall customer support quality meets a modern company’s standards.

Bovada Bonuses

Bovada betting site offers a range of lucrative promotions, but they are mainly focused on attracting new gamblers rather than maintaining the existing customer base. Bovada bonuses include several welcome promotions and can be divided into two categories: Bitcoin bonuses and bonuses coming with standard currency deposits. Like many betting sites, Bovada offers a Rewards program and provides an additional bonus for customers who recommend Bovada to their friends.

We have not found any special seasonal promotions like boosted odds or enhanced payouts on selected markets during major sports tournaments. We have gathered all available bonuses in the table below and recommend you check detailed terms and conditions at the Promotions tab on the Bovada website.

Deposit and withdrawal

Bovada does not offer many standard banking options, but it is superior in terms of cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals. Most users opt for Bitcoin or other alternative currencies, as the rest of the methods require a commission fee of up to 15%. Besides, Bovada features a very convenient transfer option of sharing funds between Bovada users.

How to deposit money into an account?

You can top up your account using the following Bovada deposit methods:

• Visa;
• Mastercard;
• Amex;
• UnionPay;
• Bitcoin;
• Bitcoin Cash;
• Zelle;
• Vouchers and Player Transfers;
• Western Union;
• MoneyGram;
• MatchPay (a trading system allowing users to share funds via PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, and CashApp).

To opt for the Voucher or Player Bovada Wire Transfer method, you must use the Bovada community, a local forum where you can trade the vouchers. You can find the people selling the vouchers, or sell your vouchers yourself.

The minimum deposit amount is $20, but some options may include transaction fees. The first deposit is free of charge, but the others will be subject to a commission of up to 15%; for instance, all credit and debit card deposits come with a 5,9% fee. The maximum deposit amount is $1,000 for fiat currencies, and cryptocurrency methods allow you to deposit up to $5,000 per single transaction.

How to withdraw money from Bovada?

You can request a payout via the following options:

• Bitcoin (processing time is 1-5 days);
• Bitcoin Cash (processing time is 1-5 days);
• Bitcoin SV;
• Litecoin;
• Ethereum;
• Check by Courier (processing time is 2-7 days);
• Wire Transfer (processing time is 3-7 days);
• Vouchers (processing time is 1-3 days);
• Match Pay.

The non-Bitcoin withdrawals also come with a commission of $100. However, there is one free withdrawal provided every ninety days. Besides, if you cancel your withdrawal, there will be extra processing fees. If you use Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Bitcoin Cash to request your payout, you will not have to pay any commissions unless you fail to meet the wagering requirements. Otherwise, you will have to pay a 10% fee of the payout amount.

Deposit and withdrawal limits

Deposits and withdrawals limits vary depending on the chosen banking method. Speaking about deposits, they are the following:

• Visa/Mastercard credit and debit cards: $20 — $1,500;
• Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin: $10 — $5,000;
• Ethereum: $50 — $5,000;
• Player Transfer: $10 — $15,000;
• Direct Bank Transfer: $50 — $450;
• MatchPay: $20 — $1,000.

The actual amounts might differ from the given figures, and depend on the cryptocurrencies rate. The maximum and minimum withdrawal limits are the following:

• Bitcoin/Bitcoin Cash/Litecoin: $10 — No limit; one withdrawal is available in three days;
• Check by Courier: $100 — $3,000, one withdrawal is available in seven days;
• Voucher: $10 — $3,000, the number of withdrawals is unlimited;
• MatchPay: $20 — $1,000, two withdrawals are allowed per day.

Special Betting Options

Bovada bookmaker is proud of its services and various opportunities they give to their customers; in this part of the Bovada website review, we will speak about such opportunities and extra options you can use for a more lucrative experience.

• Cash Out: you can close your bet and take your money back for a particular fee if you think your single bet or Parlay is not going to win
• Prop Builder: a tool allowing you to create your Props based on Statistic bet, Head Head bet, or Trios. To use it, you must choose one of the three bet types, select the players, and choose the statistic to be included in the bet. The odds will be offered by Bovada automatically and the bet will appear in your bet slip;
• #WhatsYaWager: an option allowing you to request odds and markets for any sporting event. To submit a request, gamblers must publish their suggestions on Twitter with a #WhatsYaWager hashtag. If your suggestion is approved, the market will appear at the similarly-named tab;
• Round Robin Bets: a special bet type that is pretty popular in modern digital sportsbooks but still remains an extra option not available at every betting site. Round Robin is a combination of several parlays (up to eight). You receive a payout if at least one parlay wins;
• Buy Points: an option allowing you to change point spreads and totals in the NFL, NCAA Football, and all Basketball games. For instance, you want to wager on the Chicago Bulls in their game against the Miami Heat and choose a Point Spread bet. The odds for the Chicago Bulls are -110, and the handicap points are +10. You can click on the Buy points drop-down list box and select an option: Buy ½ point (-120), Buy 1 point (-130), etc. As you see, the odds change depending on how many points you purchase.

Bovada mobile

It may seem strange for a rapidly growing young brand, but there are no dedicated Bovada apps. If you type Bovada in the App Store or Google Play, you will find several options with Bovada titles and logotypes, but these apps have nothing to do with the downloadable mobile versions of a sportsbook, casino, or a poker room. Such apps mainly serve as additional betting tools with scores, statistics, the latest Bovada odds information, and other things of this kind.

Your only option to access Bovada via a mobile device is their adapted version. Although it might not be as convenient as a native app could be, it still provides unlimited access to all gambling products, customer support, deposits, and withdrawals. The UX design is comparable to a one typical for apps, and the adaptation is performed on a high level, so you will most likely be pretty content with this option.

Our verdict

We find Bovada a good site for the US gamblers: being a recognizable brand, it has existed in the industry for more than a decade, so you can feel safe when you deposit your funds and be sure that your personal information will be kept properly. Although it is a very essential point, there must be more positive sides in a gambling platform to have high rankings, and Bovada has many of them. For instance, we liked its clean layout, looking traditional and minimalistic but having a personal touch of the brand and very elaborated easy-to-use navigation. It was pleasant to see that the company takes care of covering more than a couple of sports properly and struggles to provide both mainstream and niche markets for different tournaments worldwide. The sports betting experience combines traditional and non-standard approaches: the bettors can opt for classical wagering options and apply extra features for almost every market. Besides, we can highlight the poker room features as this product is definitely a thing owners put much effort into. Finally, we give extra rating points for the customer support and availability of cryptocurrency banking options that come with additional enhanced bonuses.

To stay unbiased, we must mention cons, too — and they involve a very small casino platform with a limited selection of titles and providers, a lack of downloadable apps, and mediocre or sometimes lower than average odds in a sportsbook.

Overall, we can recommend Bovada to recreational cryptocurrency-savvy sports bettors and poker players caring about fun more than significant profits.

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