Bovada Casino

Hello, I am a player in the USA who is primarily a land based player. ( I have extensive experience with both Las Vegas and Atlantic City which I will certainly be sharing in the appropriate forum section regarding land based north american casinos, and I look forward to reading and discussing any interesting posts I find there from other members! Especially with regards the turbulent and troubled Atlantic city market, I have a lot of info and experience to share ....)

But I also play some online casino and poker games, and for the past 3+ years I have been a member of Bovada's online casino......My typical YEARLY deposits at Bovada have been around 2000 USD (spread out over 6-8 deposits usually) and until recently I "only" would lose about 35%-40% of that, typically withdrawing around 1200-1300 back each year.......I can definitely say that Bovada is one of the BEST online casinos with respect to actually getting PAID, offering timely payouts (two weeks or less usually) and sending checks from offshore banks that rarely if ever cause trouble for the depositor! That is obviously one of the biggest concerns of players online who actually win....!


But allow me to express, as MY OPINION only (based of course on my actual play results and analysis thereof) on several "NEGATIVE" issues with Bovada's play at their online casino and poker room(s)....again, this is ONLY my opinion! I welcome any and all input, either in support or in opposition to what I am writing in this post!


My experience with their Black jack games (all versions, single deck, double and multi deck, usually *deck) has been awful.....their blackjack games, which obviously are NOT the same as a land based casino in that they are dealt from a COMPLETE and TOTAL deck(s) for every hand, unlike most casinos which deal some hands, with each preceding hand cards removed until the next "reshuffle"....bovada's games obviously "RE-SHUFFLE" after every single hand, so you can expect a volatile experience compared to a brick and mortar casino!

Even taking that into consideration, I have found my actual play results to be extremely one-sided in favor of the house. I have no trouble accepting losses, and as I already stated, I am not a HIGH STAKES Player in terms of TOTAL dollars deposited (I do not consider 2000 USD a year to be a large amount, but I realize to others it might be, but that is not my issue here.) I only play when I cannot get to my favorite land based casino (like now during winter time with hazardous travel conditions).....My concern is with the SAME thing happening seemingly EVERY TIME I play blackjack at Bovada......the gameplay just favors the house to an unreasonable degree, that has been both my perception and my reality based on my actual play results.

I have a background in math and economics and I am a college graduate, so I understand variance and probability, and it just seems something is really truly "off" with Bovada's casino blackjack......I would appreciate ANY other opinions and insight or experiences from other players with Bovada Blackjack. I AM NOT LOOKING FOR ANY SPECIFIC action or resolution (hey, I played, I payed, I lost, I get it...) I am just looking for information to help me decide If I should give them another chance or just walk away and play something or somewhere else.....


The other more straightforward area is with the VIDEO POKER at Bovada. Almost ALL bovada games in video poker offer paytables that (when analyzed) clearly offer around 99% (or slightly better like 99.5%) RETURN expectation, like their 9/6 Jacks or better (JOB) game, or 8/5 Bonus poker.....and many more variants of typical video poker games like double double bonus (DDB) which offer paytables in the 99% plus range.

Video poker is supposed to be one of the more straightforward (and "good" games) for skilled players to play, and with online games being essentially the same as actual brick and mortar games since both utilize RNGs that should operate the same....video poker experience should be similar....I found once again it is not. Bovada's video poker seems to be skewed heavily in the house's favor.

I'd love to hear other opinions on this matter

I have found their games to be seemingly completely fair and have won there many times, mostly on slots. On VideoPoker, the result are so skewed due to royal flushes, that I believe the vast majority of players experience a much higher loss rate than the 1% (or less) that is the house advantage. The problem for the player is that the long run is so long that we can almost never figure out if the game is fair or not. I think their game is, but that's far from proof.

SlotsLover said:

I have found their games to be seemingly completely fair and have won there many times, mostly on slots. On VideoPoker, the result are so skewed due to royal flushes, that I believe the vast majority of players experience a much higher loss rate than the 1% (or less) that is the house advantage. The problem for the player is that the long run is so long that we can almost never figure out if the game is fair or not. I think their game is, but that's far from proof.

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thanks for the reply and input....as I stated originally, I have been able to cashout (which means theoretically that I "won" in a limited short-term span on several occasions) and I am sure many players can report winning at various times......I understand the Bovada games like blackjack use a "cycling RNG" (as do ALL their games), so clearly you'd need to play tens of millions of individual "trials" to even begin to "PROVE" anything......

But the video Poker results that I experienced, which I actually SAVED, tell a disconcerting story for anyone who intends to be a serious player online (which is NOT what I am, merely a casual online player.....I am far more serious within REAL brick and mortar casinos when it comes to Video poker.) Without belaboring the point or getting too involved and contradicting my "CASUAL player" claim (lol) I managed to play about 5,400 total HANDS of JOB and DDB during the last calendar year of 2014......statistically I should have seen about 13 or 14 total QUADS (i.e. four of a kinds) in that sampling as typically a QUAD shows up about once every 420 hands or so.....so allowing for variance (good and bad) I would have expected my actual quad total to fall in somewhere between 8 and 20 total QUADS. I received exactly 6 QUADS, so I guess I am borderline really unlucky or Bovada's video poker RNG is different than the typical IGT RNG chip present in most video poker machines in your average north american casino.

I hope to hear from others.