Bodog Poker Morphs into Bovada in the US
Bodog Poker was one of the momentary beneficiaries in the aftermath of Black Friday (April 15, 2011). On that fateful day, three of the biggest fish in US online poker had their domain names seized and in the following days Bodog saw a spike of 32% in traffic to its site, which translated to a year on year increase of 64%.
Bodog however was already looking ahead. Fearing further US government crackdowns on online poker, in May they changed their site’s name from a “.com” to “.eu”. This was meant to pre-empt a possible seizing of the website’s domain name and its related assets by US government agencies.
Then in July 2011 Bodog announced that it was planning to quit the US online gaming business. Now, almost 6 months after that announcement, Bodog has revealed that its US operations will be morphing into a new entity called Bovada Poker.
The name Bovada is obviously a play on Bodog and Nevada and the domain name “Bovada.lv” (normally Latvia) is designed to evoke memories of Las Vegas.
Recently, Bodog procured a UK Gaming license from the UK Gambling Commission. Bodog might be distancing its brand name from the US market in order to avoid bad publicity and also to leverage in other markets like Asia the enormous prestige that comes with a UK license.
The same group, Morris Mohawk Gaming Group (MMGG), which held the license for Bodog’s US operations will run the new online company. The new site will have access to Bodog’s database through an affiliation and will also be a part of Bodog Poker Network. The original US license held by MMGG is issued by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission.
Bovada Poker will cater exclusively to poker players residing in the US. As such, players who are not US residents will be unable to register on the new site but they will continue to be able to play with their US based fellow players via the Bodog network.
American players will need to download new software from Bovada Poker’s official website. Although they cannot access their games through their Bodog software, all their account details have been moved from Bodog to Bovada. This means that they can log into the new site using their existing user names and passwords. Their bankrolls will also be transferred to Bovada.
Bodog has expressed confidence that the switchover will have only a minor impact on traffic during the transition phase. In fact, on December 14, the Bodog site was briefly not operational because the database was being shared with the new site. However, this break was timed for when US traffic was low and there was no noticeable impact on players. The site was back in action later the same day.
Prior to the switch over, Bodog had reportedly contacted its customers via e-mail to announce the change and to warn them about a possible outage during the data migration. It had also released details of the new site and assured its clients that their accounts and balances had already been transferred to the new entity.
-
Recent Tips for Real Money Poker Players:
