Bovada Reopens Online Poker Room

The Bovada brand-name has re-entered the poker market, just a year after they were acquired by Ignition Casino in a surprise move which left everything except poker offerings under the old name.

The somewhat confusing return will see them servicing most of the US market, as well as eight other countries, Mexico and the seven South American nations, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela.

Bodog Poker Network, the parent group of both Bovada and Ignition, recently changed its name to Pai Wang Luo Poker Network, after a Hong Kong investment group purchased BPN in February and it is this network which will offer the re-born Bovada room – although players in four US states: New Jersey, Nevada, Delaware, and Maryland will be off limits. The first three regulate poker, while Maryland has long been a troublesome beast for online poker rooms.

At the time of the sale, Bovada and its closely related site Bodog Poker, founded by Calvin Ayre back in 2000, was the third biggest poker room in the world – the sale to Ignition being a surprise mainly because Ignition were a hitherto unheard of operation, their owners Lynton Limited’s Kahnawake Gaming Commission licence for certain areas being voluntarily revoked this January.

As others have pointed out, Ignition recently announced it would be offering Australian players the opportunity to play, despite most other big overseas names withdrawing or planning to pull out of the Australian market in light of the recently passed Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill.

Calvin Ayre himself was last month finally freed from potential prosecution after US federal prosecutors dropped all charges filed over five years ago against him – a long-standing affair which started back in February 2012, when US Attorney for the District of Maryland indicted Bodog, the site’s founder Ayre and three others on charges of illegal gambling and money-laundering.

Bovada, however, have still been offering casino and sportsbook action since migrating to Ignition, so it is not thought the newly-announced poker plans are connected to his ‘free’ status.