After a year of inactivity, Bovada re-opened its online poker room this week. Bovada Online Poker accepts players from nine countries at present: The United States, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, and Chile.
Bovada sold its online card room to Ignition Casino a little over a year ago. Lynton Limited, the owner of Bovada and Slots.lv, shut down its online poker operations and transferred its player database and card events to Ignition Poker.
Bovada Sold Poker Room to Ignition Casino
In the year since, Bovada has offered no online poker games. It is likely Bovada and Ignition had a 1-year non-compete contract in the terms of its deal. Ignition gained a huge database of (largely Asian) poker players, while Bovada collected a nice payday ($50 million) to stop operations for a year.
While it is sometimes hard to know the inner workings of the unregulated gaming market, it is logical to assume that Ignition figured it would keep active most of the player accounts it bought in 2016, because it has the same software platform as the more well-known site. On the other hand, Bovada can rebuild its world-famous poker brand from scratch.
The new Bovada Poker will be on the PaiWangLuo Poker Network, along with Ignition Poker and Bodog Poker. In February 2017, PaiWangLuo bought the Bodog Poker Network and renamed it. PaiWangLuo is a Hong Kong-based investment group.
US States Excluded by Bovada Poker
Bovada’s card room will not accept players from four US states: New Jersey, Delaware, Nevada, and Maryland. New Jersey, Delaware, and Nevada are the three US states which currently have regulated online gambling. Those states are aggressive about keeping unregulated poker sites out of their jurisdiction. Their methods of enforcement include a deal with the Kahnawake Gaming Commission to bar sites it licenses, along with pressure through some of the payment processors which a site like Bovada might use. Bovada’s online casino and bookmaker operation also stay clear of those three states.
Maryland does not have licensed online gambling, but it has been the source of several legal actions against unregulated gaming sites in the past. From 2005 until 2017, US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was the US Attorney for Maryland. Rosenstein was an aggressive prosecuter during his time in Maryland, and was the source of a 2012 court case by the US Justice Department against Bovada. While Rosenstein now works in Washington DC, it can be presumed the team of prosecutors he built in Maryland is still largely in place.
History of Bovada
Bovada is the successor to the Bodog online gambling brand. When the UIGEA went into effect in late 2006, Calvin Ayre sold Bodog to a Canadian tribal gaming group. Ayre licensed the “Bodog” brand name to a number of other operators around the globe.
Though he was out of the picture as an online gambling operator from 2007 to 2012, Rod Rosenstein used those licensing deals to bring indictments against Calvin Ayre. Earlier this summer, Mr. Ayre settled those charges by pleading guilty to misdemeanors. His deal with the US government did not involve promises about online gambling activities.
Bovada Asia Poker Website
Bovada’s was launched as a successor to Bodog, which continues to operate in Europe and Asia. Bodog eventually launched Bovada Asia, which was the main focus of the site’s poker operations. It was that Asian card playing operation which Bodog sold to Ignition Casino last year.
Will Bovada Poker Enter Australia?
Now that Bovada Poker exists again, people have wondered whether the site will enter the unregulated Australian iPoker market. Top card sites like PokerStars, 32red Poker, 888poker, and Party Poker recently left the Australian market. Ignition Poker said it will enter Australia, so it makes sense that Bovada would plan an eventual return. Sites like PokerStars and 888 have shareholders to consider, while Bovada and Ignition are private enterprises.
Why Did Bovada Relaunch Its Poker Site?
Online gaming media sites have speculated that Bovada Poker’s return happened because Calvin Ayre recently cleared up his legal issues back in the United States. Because Bovada continued its unregulated online casino and sportsbook operations over the past year, that probably is not the case. Once again, the sell of the original Bovada Poker to Ignition Casino seems like a likelier explanation, because it would have done Ignition no good to have bought Bovada’s player database, if Bovada immediately was allowed to launch a competitor website and accept those same players.
