Bovada Poker Review
Bovada Poker is a new arm to a highly established and trusted brand, Bodog. It’s a side of the business specifically for American poker players to play on and is one of our recommended US friendly poker sites. It’s classy, it’s slick and it’s sexy. With a huge $1000 welcome bonus going at the moment and truly excellent customer support, there’s tons to love about Bovada. You will also be playing on a truly unique poker site – Bovada (and its sister site Bodog) features all ‘anonymous’ tables so your fellow players will never be able to make notes on you or store ‘reads’ on your play.
- Site Established in 2011
- Get 100% Match Bonus up to $1000
- US Players Accepted
- Specializes in Poker, Casino, and Sportsbook
- Allows up to 60 Days to Earn the Bonus
- Minimum Deposits in Low Increments
- Reputed to Maintain Great Customer Service
- Deposit Bonus: 100%
- Signup Code: Use Link
- Rakeback: VIP
- Network: Bodog
- Mac Friendly: No
Bovada Poker Bonuses
As Bovada is quite new to the poker scene, they’re enticing new players to their site right now with a really generous 100% welcome bonus of up to $1000. So basically what you can do here is double your initial Bovada bankroll. This is one of the most generous USA friendly poker bonuses on the market.
The bonus will pay into your account automatically and is based on you earning Poker Points (which are part of Bovada’s reward scheme which we’ll speak about later on). The maximum bonus you can obtain is the $1000 and every five Poker Points you accumulate equals $1 of the bonus. There is a pretty generous 60 days in which to earn the bonus.
As a new Bovada Poker player you will also receive six entries into the $100k New Player Qualifier tournament, which is a satellite to the huge $100k Sunday Guaranteed.
There are two other Bovada Poker bonuses which are ongoing promotions. Firstly is the Royal Flush bonus – this means if you’re playing in a cash game and hit a Royal, you can grab a bonus of 50 times the big blind, up to a very cool maximum of $200 (note: you need to email in to claim this bonus, it’s not automatic).
The second one is the Bovada Bad Beat Bonus – here, again for cash games, if you lose holding a full house (Aces and Kings) or better, you can get a bonus of 100 times the big blind to a maximum of $1000 – a very nice way of sweetening the bad beat! (Again with this one you need to email in to claim it)
Bovada Poker Banking Options
When you’re ready to put down some money and start playing, head over to the cashier section to make your first deposit. Bovada accepts Visa credit card (minimum $20, maximum $475 in one transaction), Rapid Transfer ($100-$900) and MyPaylinQ ($20-$500).
For cashing out your winnings, it’s done by cheque, unless you deposited by MyPaylinQ in which case it’s the same method to get your funds out.
All transactions are handled securely so you can be confident your funds and payment details are kept confidential at all times. For your peace of mind, Bovada Poker is fully licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, in Canada.
Bovada Poker Software
Bovada’s poker client is a beautifully simple piece of software. With its gorgeous black, red and silver interface it’s great to use and play on.
The unique thing about playing on Bovada is that all the tables are what’s called ‘anonymous’ – this was a feature they recently brought in. What it means is, rather than seeing the player’s nickname/screen-name like you would at a normal online poker table, you just see their seat number. You can’t take notes on them, and obviously the data from HUDs won’t last longer than that session.
Now there are obviously pros and cons of this approach but the positive thing is this – your opponents don’t know who you are, they can’t make notes on you, and they can’t keep statistics on you. You can be playing in multiple tables as well and no-one will be any the wiser. This gives you a bit of an edge if you’re a good player as no-one can learn your tells or style of play (outside of that game or table for that given session, obviously).
The best thing about the Bovada Poker software is the crisp, ‘clean’ looking graphics which run really nicely even when playing multiple tables at once. There is a handy ‘spotlight’ effect which goes around the table highlighting the player who is due to act in that hand.
Bovada Poker Game Selection
Bovada have a diverse offering of poker formats and stakes. Specifically these are – Texas Hold’em, Omaha Hi, Omaha Hi/Lo, 7 Card Stud and 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo, with variations of No, Pot and Fixed Limits.
Bovada is most suited to low-medium stakes players, with the highest cash game stake on offer being $30/$60, but with better traffic at the $10/$20 level. MTTs range from $1 to $450 buy-ins.
Bovada is a huge gaming brand though and it’s not just poker they excel in – there is also sports, casino and horse betting on offer – pretty much anything you could ever want relating to gambling. This makes Bovada an ideal site to play on if you’re after a diverse gaming and poker experience all in one site.
Bovada Poker Rewards Program
Bovada’s player scheme is based around earning Poker Points, or what they refer to as PTS. You earn these every time you play real money poker at their site at the following rates:
- SNGs and MTTs: Three points for every $1 of tournament fee (e.g. a $20+$2 SNG would earn six PTS)
- Cash games: Depends on the size of the rake you contribute, starting at 0.05 PTS up to a maximum of 1.00 PTS per hand,
The more poker you play, the more PTS you earn – nice and simple.
Once you’ve been playing for a while you’ll have accumulated a nice pot of these PTS and your next question is probably “what can I do with them?” Well, you have two choices – firstly you can claim online poker bonuses with them, or alternatively you can exchange them for tournament tickets or specifically PTS Freeroll entries. The main PTS freeroll runs twice a month and has a $7,500 prize-pool with a buy-in of 1,000 PTS. There are qualifiers/satellites into this tournament starting at just 25 PTS.
