Bovada Casino Review: In-Depth Guide for U.S. Players

Last updated October 10th, 2020

Visit Bovada CasinoThe most important thing about Bovada Casino is that it is honest, trustworthy and well run. At USAbetting, we would not say that lightly.

The software is high end with the most impressive selection of 300+ games from industry-leading providers RTG, Rival and Betsoft. You can get involved fast with their instant play casino games, ideal for desktop and via your mobile. So there is no need for a download.

The payout system is as good as it gets in the American online casino space and the customer service is top notch. To ensure nobody ‘out-bonuses’ them, the welcome offer is best-in-class as well. Use the list of links below to skip to a subsection of this guide or just keep reading our Bovada Casino review.
Jump To A Section Of This Review: Bovada Casino Bonuses, Rewards & Cashback, Who Can Join, Games & Software, Live Dealer Casino, Mobile Site, Payouts & Deposits, Player Help & Contact, Sports & Poker, Pros & Cons, Our Bovada Casino Verdict & Leave Your Review & Star Rating.

$3750 Bovada Casino Welcome Bonus

To find all the current promos, go to the two parallel lines at the top right corner of the Bovada website and click on it. A sub-menu will appear including a link to “promotions.”

The welcome bonus offers from Bovada Casino are either $3000 or $3750 for a deposit by Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash:

• $3000 Welcome Bonus: This is given as 100% match bonus of your deposits up to $1000. You must use promo code NEWWELCOME if you wish to claim this. There is a 25 x rollover requirement on bonus and deposit totals. All 300+ casino games except the live dealer casino and craps count towards the rollover requirement. For your second and third deposits you can claim another 100% up to $1000 each time, totaling the $3000 figure. Use code BV2NDCWB. The playthrough remains the same.
• $3750 Bitcoin & Bitcoin Cash Bonus: There is a 125% match bonus up to $1250 if you deposit using Bitcoin (code: BTCCW1250) for the first time. You can get this twice more at your 2nd and 3rd deposits, but the code to be used is BTC2NDCWB. There is a 25 x rollover requirement on the deposit and bonus amounts. As with the previous offer, bonus funds can not be used for live dealer casino play. Craps and live dealer don’t count towards the rollover requirement.

Another thing to note is that some of the casino games do not contribute fully to the wagering requirement. This is a common condition at online casino websites. It is an important one for players to be aware of. In the case of Bovada the contribution of each game is as follows:

You do need to be aware of the pitfalls of welcome bonuses. Don’t make any assumptions. If you know the conditions then you will be aware of the quickest, safest ways to earn them out and make some decent money from them. There are rewards to be had, but you do need to keep your wits about you and be lucky.

Loyalty Rewards Program & Cashback on Losses

Loyalty gets its reward at Bovada with their fairly generous Rewards Program as well as cashback on losses. So the opportunity to benefit from promos does not end after you are done with the welcome offers.

Keep an eye out for other great promos like reloads and special short-term offers that crop up from time to time, but the single best constant promotion is the Rewards Program and their associated cashback giveaway.

The way it works is that you will get rewards points automatically for all your play in the casino, sportsbook and racebook. You also get these loyalty points for play in poker tournaments, cash games and sit and go events. The only exclusion is that you don’t get points for play in the live dealer casino.

Some casino games and sports bets earn more points per $1 spent than others. For example, table games give you 1 reward point for each $1 spent. However racebook exotic bets give you 60 points per $1 bet. Everything else falls somewhere in between those two.

You can redeem $1 cash for every 2500 rewards points gained and this rate gets better the more points you accumulate. A few key points to note are:

• You can redeem these points at any time from within your account in the Rewards Portal. You can cash in just a portion at a time or the whole lot – it is your choice.
• There is a rollover requirement on the cash bonus. It is x 10 for casino and x 2 for sports and wagers on the ponies.

Pragmatically, the thing to do is maybe not concentrate too much on the rewards program and just be aware it is working away earning a bit of money back on your play all the time.

How Cashback Works

As well as Rewards Points, you get cashback. If your account balance at the end of a day is less than $10, then Bovada’s systems automatically check if you have made a loss since the last time you received cash back or, if it is the first time, since you joined.

All you need to know is cashback exists & given automaticallyYou then get a percentage of cashback on your losses dependent on your tier in the Rewards Program and depending where the losses were incurred (casino, sports, racebook or poker). Put simply, the worst cashback you will get is 2.5% and the best is 15.5%.

The rollover requirement on the cashback given to you is: x 1 for casino, sports and racebook play. For poker play it is “5 rewards points earned per $1 of cashback”.

USAbetting believes the cashback is great and not to be knocked. It is an awesome extra that most operators don’t even offer. However Bovada should have made it simpler to understand. The explanation for the workings of this cashback is complicated. We don’t all have a math degree.

If you want to dig into it further then there is a ton of information on their website and in their FAQs section explaining the finer details of their calculations. In reality all you need to know is: cashback exists and will be given to you automatically.

Who Can Join?

Bovada is only for Americans. No other nationalities can sign up. This is due to the deal they made with Bodog when the American arm of Bodog rebranded as Bovada quite a few years ago.

The other crucial thing to be aware of is the restricted US states. If you are resident of these states you can not join either:  New Jersey, Nevada, Delaware & Maryland. If you are from those states then this review advises that you check out our CasinoMax review as that brand accepts all United States’  locations.

Bovada Online Casino Games & Software Providers

There is a huge array of casino games available including slots, table games, video poker and what they call ‘specialty’ games. In fact, because they use several software providers, there are around 360 games in all from RTG (Real Time Gaming), Betsoft, Rival and some proprietary titles.

• Slots: There are over 100 different online slot machines to choose from. The Bovada slot games groups include: New Games, i-Slots, Real Series, Video Slots, 3D (where the graphics are awesome), Progressives, Rival Games and Five Reels. Obviously the progressive jackpots are a firm favorite with many players. The most popular ones feature on the casino home page but you can also quickly sort all slots into different categories via the handy drop-down menu below:

• Table Games: There were 21 of these at the time of this Bovada Casino review. These included: Blackjack, Roulette, Poker, Card Games and Dice Games. The blackjack variations available include nine different versions, chiefly: blackjack, classic, classic single and double deck, European, Perfect Pairs and Zappit. Roulette has four options: American and European versions plus the ‘classic’ options for those as well. There are five poker table games: Tri Card, Classic Tri Card, Pai Gow, Caribbean Hold ’Em and Caribbean Stud. Other choices include the popular card game Baccarat, Rummy, Andar Bahar, Spin The Wheel plus Roll The Dice and Classic Craps.
• Video Poker: There are 17 different version – suffice to say, if you are into video poker then Bovada Casino has you completely covered.
• Specialty Games: This section has 22 games and covers the likes of Keno (2 types), Bingo (11 choices) and eight scratch card games with titles such as Tiki Treasure, Penguin Payday and Cavalier Cash.

Then of course there is their brilliant live dealer section, which we explain in full in the following section.

Bovada Live Dealer Casino

The live dealer option at Bovada is very popular because they do it so well. Sometimes online casinos forget about the human element. There is a charm and authenticity to being face-to-face with a croupier. The live dealer conception satisfies that need, particularly at Bovada where it is done so well.

It is refreshing to see real packs of cards, not some computer-generated graphic version, with a real roulette wheel and proper felt tables. The interaction is similar to a Vegas casino, as if you had just walked in off the street and sat down. There is a choice of the most popular table games, all streamed live from the studio:

• Blackjack: There are two versions – traditional and early payout. The latter gives players a chance to take winnings a round early if they look to have a good hand.
• Roulette: Both the European and Americans tables are available.
• Baccarat: This popular table game has one side bet.
• Super 6: This is also Baccarat, but with five extra side bets.

Live Dealer Bonuses: Studying the smallprint of the bonus conditions, none of them allow ‘live dealer play’ to be used towards the rollover requirement. So if you plan on playing at the live dealer casino only then simply don’t bother with a bonus. This policy is fairly standard across all the online casino sites that accept Americans and have a live dealer alternative. If you use other sections of the Bovada site, such as the casino, poker or sports then perhaps pick the bonus that best suits the needs of one of those areas.

Mobile Casino

There is nothing complicated about playing on your mobile (Android or iOS), cell, smartphone, iphone, ipad, tablet or whatever you want to call that little thing you carry around in your pocket! There is no need to visit the app store or download anything.

The Bovada mobile casino experience is fully responsive and instant play. You just need to browse to the Bovada website in the normal way on your cell and the mobile-optimized version will immediately be on screen.

Bovada Casino Cashier & Banking

Deposit Methods

As with all US-facing casinos there is not a long list of funding options. However what they have does cover 90% of the most popular payment methods anyway:

• The best option has to be cryptocurrency, in this case: bitcoin or bitcoin cash. It is fast and there are no fees.
• The next best alternative is Mastercard or Visa credit card. There is no fee for the first deposit, after that the fee is circa 5.9%.
• The other alternatives are gift card (card activation fee will likely apply) or voucher or via Zelle.

Withdrawal / Payout Options

Again these payout options may seem bereft of too many alternatives, but it comes with the offshore casino space. The choices are:

• Cryptocurrency: bitcoin and bitcoin cash. Again this has to be the most pragmatic selection. This does not incur a fee.
• Check by courier. This is the number one choice if you are using a fiat currency, such as USD. You get one free withdrawal every 90 days. Any more within that time period are charged at $100 a time. That fee is small change for a withdrawal of several thousand or more, but obviously looks very expensive if the withdrawal is in the hundreds. In that case it may be worth trying to work the freebie every 90 days.
• Voucher (no fees).

Contact Customer Service

There are a number of options for customer service. In order of our preference to try, they are:

• Live Chat: Available 24/7 and helpful.
• Phone: It is a toll-free telephone number for USA players, 1-888-263-0000. This is also available 24 hours a day. One note of caution: during the Coronavirus lockdown they did remove this as a contact facility, citing staff distancing issues.
• Help Section & FAQs: Yes, this should elicit a collective groan normally but Bovada’s Help & FAQs section is comprehensive and put together superbly. Take a browse around it and we believe you will agree that it is head of class for online betting sites. It is highly likely to hold the answer to your question and that is a pleasant change.
• Community: The Bovada Community allows you to ask questions of other players at the site. You’ll find a history of queries and answers, which may just solve your issue. The transparency and confidence to have such a section – where clients interact about the site – is a major feather in Bovada’s cap.
• Email: If you can afford to wait a while for your query to be answered then consider this option. This is actually via a secure message form. They state there will be an answer inside 72 hours, which is fairly pathetic and rather rules this option out for most questions.

Customer support at Bovada has always been good, with helpful representatives who know what they are talking about. They really make an effort to do a good job serving players’ needs. USAbetting views their CS department as a real positive.

Sports & Poker

As well as their leading-edge Bovada Casino, the prominent brand offers sports betting and poker:

• Sportsbook: Best of breed in the US space, with more markets on more events than its rivals. The welcome bonus is 50% up to $250 for sports and 75% to $750 for bitcoin deposits. So if you ever want that once a year wager on the Super Bowl, this site has you covered. Read our full Bovada sports review.
• Poker: Their poker offering is similarly impressive. It has its own proprietary software, shared with non-USA facing Bodog and a few other poker-only sister brands. It is the most-used network in the American offshore space. Its huge popularity stems partly from the fantastic design of its slick software with its famed anonymous tables. The latter is beneficial for newbies. There are cash games at all levels and every form of tournament. Read our Bovada Poker review.

Advantages & Disadvantages of Bovada Casino

Here is an at-a-glance list, in table form, of the pros and cons of Bovada Casino that our detailed review has discovered.

Opinion of Bovada Casino

To sum up this Bovada Casino review, USAbetting can thoroughly recommend them. This is arguably the best option for Americans who are not from the four excluded states. The top-grade casino games, from a wide range of developers, are plentiful and there is also an awesome live dealer choice. It all works great on mobile, without the need for an app. The bonuses are top notch and regular play is recognized in cash terms via their rewards program and cashback. For the USA betting space, their cashier system and customer service is superb. More importantly, you will receive fair and honest treatment from this firm. Go for it.

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