Bovada is an old player. I would say much older, since it was pretty much spawn out of Bodog; its Canadian cousin, started by Calvin Ayre in 2000.
This is what Wikipedia says about Calvin:
Ayre converted his Vancouver-based Internet incubator company into a software support firm for online gambling, which became Bodog. He was able to license his software to several online casinos but soon realized the real money was in running his own gaming operation. His gambling business was setup in 1996 and was based in Costa Rica. Bodog.com was established in 2000.
Before sports betting became legal in the US; Bovada and BetOnline (a few others too) were the only two key companies to dominate the online gambling platforms. They’re (both) still doing well, though the days of “We’re the Kings of the World,” are long gone; taken over by the likes of legal sites like FanDuel and DraftKings, or one can even put Stake in that category.
I did a Google trends search just to show you the data. Below you can evidently see Bovada’s Blue line basically collapsing under FanDuel (Orange line) and DraftKings (Red line) since 2023. The user behavior data sort of proves that the legal betting sites have indeed taken over offshore outfits. Americans are simply choosing to go the legal route.
But, Bovada still boasts millions of bettors. I don’t know how many of them are daily active players. I don’t believe anyone has this information apart from them. But, it has to be multiple of tens of thousands at least.
For example, if we’re talking about stats, Bovada Poker which is managed by PaiWangLuo Poker Network can average anywhere from 1500 to 2000 active players for its cash games at any given time. I know Bovada Poker is still quite legit in its own right.
Personally, I have played there only on one odd occasion. Didn’t win anything. Lost $500 in total.
But, I have three buddies who do have accounts there. In fact, they’ve been its loyal customers way before it was called Bovada (like when it used to operate under the Bodog brand).
Not once, have I heard anything bad related to withdrawals. One of them even withdrew a $375,000, 15-leg parlay win back in 2015. That was some feat, but it’s another story. The other two share the same stance. Yes, they do often complain about rigged blackjack tables (like bot players) here and there, but at least when it comes to sports betting, never anything that should put them in a very bad light.
So, it’s this very reason, I’m a bit surprised at the number of bad reviews, or I should say, the overall terrible public perception of this bookie on Trustpilot. Literally, 89% of the ratings given to it are 1-Star.
Not that the number of reviews are that high in number; they stand around at over 1100. So the sample size is questionable. Even then, it does put a bad taste in one’s mouth, especially, when I as a person, and three of my regular-gambler friends have never really had any antagonistic relationship with Bovada.
There’s also no point for me to push their positive image on to you. Frankly it doesn’t serve my purpose; which is to be impartial to the core. Bovada doesn’t pay me jack, and I don’t owe anything to them. In fact, I don’t even link out to bookie sites in most of my writings. Don’t believe me, just surf around and find it out for yourself.
I’m going to lay it down as it is, and share a few stories of real people who have deposited and played at this place. If Bovada is such a second-class betting site, according to the majority of the reviewers at Trustpilot, who am I to judge their experiences? But, like I said before, for me, Bovada is “OK.” I don’t think they would ever cheat anyone at will. Because if it were true, they would have been out of business like a decade ago.
By the way, I like Wild Casino, which is a competitor of Bovada. Why? Because I personally played there, won and lost like $11k. Read my review of Wild Casino to if you want to dig deeper.
Their video poker tables act weird, or some might say shady
A guy in his 20-something, a college goer feels bored. One day he’s sitting on his butt, when his brain gives him an idea to to try out online betting. He’s got only $400 or so in his bank account. So he Googles “betting sites that can be trusted,” gets a bunch of names, like MGM, FanDuel, DraftKings etc. He visits all of them, and nearly fills up the sign up form at FanDuel, when he remembers his friend had an account at a site he was raving about. He texts him and five minutes later he gets a reply back from his friend who says it was a site called Bovada.
Without even thinking twice, he opens another tab, cuts the FanDuel window, and registers. Even though, at first, he didn’t like the concept of playing at an offshore betting site, he went along anyways.
The card payment went through fine. But, the fees was high. Not cool. This was a turn off. But, it was a bit too late to argue on it. Main thing was to test the platform.
He began by dropping $50 on the video Poker tables, since this was his game. Around 15 minutes later, he was out. Like WTF. It was one bad beat after another. And it wasn’t that he was stuck on one. He moved about one table to another. Same result.
He did notice one username consistently playing at nearly all the tables, and somehow also winning more hands, like that person was a some professional poker player. This annoyed him a lot, so he Googled “bot poker players Bovada,” and was seriously pissed off to find out that there were many reviews by people complaining about the exact same auto playing bots.
Nevertheless, he gave them a benefit of the doubt. Next he tried their slots. Made 1 cent to 50 cent spins, but nothing happened. Lost $200 in 40 minutes or so.
The anomalies were so shady he decided to quit the platform. He called up his friend to tell him this, but he basically advised him to try them out for sports betting only, because that is what he used them for.
The guy never played at Bovada again.
Don’t get excited about their sportsbook bonus offer, it expires before you can complete it
An Uber driver wanted to delve into sports betting. Unfortunately, he lives in Huntsville, Alabama where sports betting is still illegal. He had no choice but to go for sites like BetUS, Bovada or BetOnline.
He chose Bovada, signed up with $650 and got a bonus offer (read about their crypto welcome bonus rules). The first 3 to 4 days, he didn’t bet on anything. He was just surfing about the platform, testing out its features and all. Then an opportunity provided itself on a Sunday night game. He placed a 2-leg parlay that luckily hit and netted him a cool $1395 dollars.
Like any other sane person, he went to the Cashier section and requested a withdrawal and then headed out to celebrate. When he came back home a few hours later to check its status; he was surprised and confused to find out that it had been rejected.
He contacted their support who told them that he had make more bets and complete what they called the rollover requirements because he took on the bonus money. He then asked if it was possible to cancel the bonus. The support said yes, but then he would have to forfeit his winnings too. Bad deal, so he didn’t take it.
Angry at Bovada for their devious tactics, he just didn’t play for several days. In fact, more than two weeks had passed before he logged back in. And to his horror, he found out that Bovada had removed his winnings and his original deposit. The support told him that according to the Bonus Terms (which he did not read), he had 14 days to complete the playthrough, and since he failed, the winnings were voided.
To make matters worse, the playthrough money is first deducted from the original deposit, before the bonus money can be used up to complete the offer.
He felt complete ripped off, cursed Bovada’s support staff in the Chat session and then left, distressed and vexed at what had just happened.
Bovada can confiscate your crypto whenever it wants
Two young friends made some good money teaching crypto to newbies. They were also fond of gambling, and somehow through recommendations of others decided to open two separate accounts at Bovada.
Both deposited $5k worth of BTC each. Played a few games here and there. Mostly lost. One of them actually went ahead and took his own personal balance to $7k.
A few days later, the same guy logged into his account, but could not locate his funds. He immediately thought he was hacked. So, he got in touch with Bovada’s customer support, who denied such a possibility.
Instead, the support executive started blaming him for colluding with his other friend, basically having two accounts at Bovada with an intention of gaming their blackjack tables. The person explained to the customer service representative that it could not have been possible, because since signing up, all they did was to lose their deposit and the bonus. There wasn’t even a single-digit upside in their overall balance to have had Bovada’s accusations hold any credence.
Their only crime was that they were friends, who tried to play against each other once or twice on their Blackjack tables.
They both begged them to call them on the phone to verify and make things clearer, but all communication was deliberately passed through email. Bovada held the final call, and their customer service simply closed both accounts and also withheld all the remaining balance inside which was $2k at the time.
Now they go about sites like Trustpilot and Reddit and warn others of Bovada’s trickeries.
Bovada never really processed my withdrawal request
A mom, who usually doesn’t really gamble much, won $3500 on slots. This also happened on a $3 bet. She also only made an initial deposit of $200 and kept getting lucky over the course of a month and half or so.
Apparently, she was wise enough to not have taken the bonus offer, that is nearly forcefully thrust upon newbies, who don’t know any better.
But, her dilemma wasn’t the slot playthroughs; it was getting paid for her rightful win.
She requested her withdrawal four times, and every time, a Bovada’s customer service representative promised a call back for the first-withdrawal verification. Thing is she’s waited for her callback for over two weeks.
During this time she’d been emailing them back and forth, only to get one excuse after another.
In the end she gave up trying and asked her bank to proceed with a charge back. To her, Bovada is nothing but a group of con artists, out to feed on people who don’t know any better.
She still plays slots once a while, but only on legal betting sites. At least now, she would have a way to complain to her local State Gaming Board, should FanDuel or DraftKings try to scam her.
Her lesson although hard, did set her up in the correct direction.
Right, so these are few reviews from real people who played at Bovada and hated them for it.
The reason I chose the negative ones isn’t because I have a personal vendetta against Bovada. Like I mentioned in the beginning, I never had any problems like the ones above, nor did anyone I know who have been playing there for years.
It’s just that I need to follow the wave; the crowd. I can’t be singing praises for them when a vast number of people on Trustpilot hate this betting site.
Mind you, I didn’t touch Reddit yet; I’m sure there wouldn’t be any shortage of rage against Bovada there too.
I have to tell people the facts. And then it’s up to them to take whatever decision they want to.
I’m not out here to do a PR campaign, but just to tell the world, what real people, with real money had in terms of real experiences playing at this place.
But, if you were to ask me personally, if I would vouch for Bovada? Of course I would.
I believe a good number of bad reviews could stem from the fact that this company probably has a serious staffing issue. It’s simply not able to handle the thousands of customer-service related tasks a company its size receives; in a timely manner.
The overworked staff and certain unsustainable operational policies (that delays the resolution of clients’ problems) are most probable, or I should say the fundamental reasons why Bovada gets such level of hate on uncompromised and open-ended review sites.
I can’t do much about it. Bovada can, and I hope it does.