- Variety of tournaments for every buy-in level
- Tournaments with regular overlay
- Variety of tournaments for every buy-in level
- Cash game action up to $1000/2000
- Massive promotions
- Great for beginners
- No tracker support
- No Holdem HU tables
- Mixed games not yet available
Highlights
- Tons of action and Anonymous poker tables
- First deposit bonus 100% up to $500
- Great choice of MTTs
- The best option for US and AU players
- Great option for Bitcoin user
Poker Room Details
- Network: PaiWangLuo
- License: N/A
- Founded in: 2004
- bovada.com
Bovada Poker Review
Bovada Poker is probably the best known US and Australian friendly online poker room.
Bovada, just like Ignition Poker focuses more on the US and Australian market and prefers to use BTC for deposits and withdrawals.
How To Sign-Up To Bovada
You can sign-up on Bovada Poker with a few easy steps:
Step 1. Open an incognito window with your browser or delete cookies from your web browser.
Step 2. Visit the Bovada Poker main page by clicking here:
Step 3. Download and install the poker client
Step 4. Open up and click on ‘Create New Account’
Step 5. Choose a deposit method and first deposit bonus, make the deposit and start playing!
The Welcome Bonus
The brand offers a first deposit 100% match welcome bonus of up to $500 for new players.
The welcome bonus is released in $5 increments every time you earn 150 Rewards points through poker game play. This can be from Cash Games, Tournaments and SNGs. You have 30 days to clear the bonus.
Why Is Bovada Poker So Popular
- Cryptocurrency support for deposits and withdrawals
- Anonymous poker table game play
- Large selection of weekly poker tournaments
- Very fast withdrawal options
- Caters to the US and AU poker market
Bovada Poker UI
Accessing the poker room at Bovada will present you with an easy-to-navigate setup. Finding the right sort of poker game for you is key, and the lobby allows you to find a table with settings that cater to you. Prior to doing so though, you can customize the display to your own preferences. Different background colors and card fronts and backs can be chosen. You can also set to utilize a preferred seating option when you join a table.
PaiWangLuo software frequently operates at a high level, although a few issues have been present from time to time. This has led to some players not being able to connect to their preferred table.
While many online poker sites provide you with a huge lobby of games to select from, Bovada Poker works things differently. You choose the type of game you would like to play – cash or zone – the type of card game – Hold’em, Omaha or Omaha Hi/Lo – whether there is a pot limit or not, and the number of seats at the table.
The left-hand side of the software provides a menu for you to navigate between cash games, zone poker, jackpot sit and gos, standard sit and gos or tournaments. Once a table loads up for you, the graphics are undoubtedly very impressive, and you can access up to four tables in one go.
The poker client can be accessed through either a Windows PC or an Apple Mac, with download and instant play versions available. When it comes to mobile gaming though, only the instant play option is accessible. There isn’t a downloadable mobile app available at Bovada Poker, so if playing by mobile, you just need to navigate to the site through the handset’s web browser. Bovada was actually one of the first platforms to provide real money mobile gaming in the United States. Zone games and cash games can be played this way, but there are limitations when compared with the desktop client.
Key essentials that are left out in the app are tournament and SNG support and multitabling support. For this reason, our recommendation for use of the mobile version is Zone Poker where you don’t have to wait for new hands to be dealt, even if you’re playing just a single table.
Traffic Overview And Game Selection
When it comes to the competition for poker traffic, Ignition consistently wins out, operating as the #1 choice for many US and AU poker players.
Of course, the effects of Black Friday did manage to knock out a lot of competition from the US market, and it seems like Ignition has gained a lot from this. Over the past few years, it can be said that the online poker room has grown considerably in traffic levels.
It helps that traffic on the PaiWangLuo network comes from Ignition and Bodog, making it one of the largest offshore networks in the world for US players to enjoy.
Difficulties do come when trying to report on specific numbers though, because Ignition no longer provides a list of cash games within its lobby. Therefore, it is near impossible to figure out how many cash players and tables are actually active at any given time. Furthermore, the site does not have any details on the total player count anywhere to see.
Peak traffic times at Ignition Poker seem to be between 7pm through to midnight EST, with Fridays and Saturdays drawing more people in. Anyone looking for plenty of competition will likely want to visit the online poker site on Friday night to experience this.
Figures from before Ignition introduced anonymous tables displayed it as being the third most traffic-heavy of any poker room in the world, and in the prime position within the US. In fact, it had around double the traffic of its nearest competitor in that market.
Of course, the anonymous tables have a lot to do with this being kept secret. Jackpot tournaments do fill up quite fast though, and games tend to only last for a few minutes. Less popular tournaments tend to bring at least 200 players, while the larger ones often experience traffic of around 900 – 1,000 tournament players. Ignition Poker is not the optimal choice for high stakes players, as the higher limit tables don’t run that often.
Game Formats And Player Traffic
An online poker room without good traffic and game variety is like a near-empty nightclub where the atmosphere is cold and just a few people are out on the dance floor. The traffic a poker site has is a key factor when it comes to choosing where to play, not to mention all different poker variants offered.
If you’re like most poker players, having the following game formats available is a must:
- Tournaments
- Cash games
- No Limit Texas Hold’em (NLHE)
- Limit Hold’em
- Pot Limit Omaha (PLO)
- Sit and Gos (SNGs)
- Spin and Gos
- Freerolls
- Omaha 8 or Better
Besides the usual game formats, exotic game formats can be quite profitable once you’ve become somewhat good in the most popular games like No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha. If you prefer to play a quick game of poker, you can try out speed poker formats like Fast-fold or Zoom where you don’t have to wait for the next hand to be dealt after the previous one has ended on your part. If you like some exotic game formats, you might also look for the following:
- Triple Draw Poker
- Open-face Chinese Poker
- Mixed Games
- Badugi
- Stud
- Drawmaha aka Sviten Special
- Scandinavian Stud aka Sökö
- Fast-forward or zoom poker
One thing to keep in mind is that a big number of registered players doesn’t guarantee good games at online poker sites. Sometimes you can find a truly amazing exotic game running regularly at a smaller traffic poker site – our Beasts Of Poker Team Pros have crushed games like these for big 5-figures or even 6-figures!
