Depositing Money

The advertised methods to add funds to your Bovada account are by credit card (Visa, AMEX and Mastercard only), Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.

From the picture, one can also see that you can select which bonus offer to take advantage of with your deposit. The minimum deposit into Bovada is only $25 which is much less than is required at most sportsbooks. It is recommended to put in more than that to take advantage of Bovada’s generous bonus offers.Visa is the most popular method to fund your account. We show this method in the screenshot to the left. On the initial deposit into Bovada, the fee is waived, but every time after that you will have to pay a 5.9% fee on each deposit.

Starting in March of 2016, Bovada begun to accept Bitcoin as a deposit method. This has become ever more popular in the sportsbook betting world as deposits by this method come with no fee. If you already have a Bitcoin wallet then this is certainly the easiest route to go when depositing money in your account.

It is important to note that in this industry, deposit options are constantly changing. For a full list of deposit tips, the Bovada website provides a great resource: Deposit Methods.

Limits/Ease of depositing money: 10/10

Betting Interface

We were always fans of the interface that Bovada had set up previously. So, when they made the change to their new interface in late July of 2015, it took some getting used to. Then, just as we were getting used to that, on July 18th, 2018, they again upgraded their interface. This latest update has been their biggest yet in what can be branded as almost a complete website redesign. There is some good and some bad, and we will try to cover all of it in this section.The listing of sports is now available in a menu at the top of the page. This set up was very well done and it’s easy to jump between sports and the different bet types. There is a “Quick Links” bar in the left column of the screen that covers the big sporting events of the day.

Perhaps a small drawback in the update is in regards to the Bet Slip. While it works fine, it just doesn’t seem to cover all the information that you want on one screen. In the picture above, one can see that we placed two bets and yet seemingly have to do a lot of scrolling on the Bet Slip to place our bet amounts or add to a parlay. We wish the Bet Slip was as compact as it was in the past. While this is a slight negative, the Bet Slip is still very simple to use.

While this doesn’t seem like it is that big of a deal, we have used sportsbook sites that had very clunky and hard to use bet slips. After trying to labor through some of those bet slips, we can certainly appreciate when a sportsbook does it right. While we don’t think Bovada has it perfectly nailed it yet, we applaud their efforts and willingness to continue to innovate their site!

Look and feel of the betting interface: 8/10

Odds/Bet Limits

Perhaps one of the main weaknesses regarding the Bovada sportsbook is that they are incredibly slow at listing match ups. For those that like to bet NBA or college basketball games, you may have to wait until 2pm ET in the afternoon for the lines to be live. Comparing this to the other ten sportsbooks that we use, Bovada is consistently the last to list their odds (usually by more than 4 hours!) on the major American sports. To the recreational gambler this is not a big deal, but if you are the type that is chomping at the bit to get your picks in early in the morning then this is a negative. The one exception to this rule is in soccer. For whatever reason, Bovada is consistently first in getting their lines out for most soccer contests across the globe.

While discussing positives, we love the fact that the minimum bet is only one dollar. While the serious gambler isn’t really concerned about minimums, this is a huge benefit for people that occasionally just want to throw a few dollars down.

Odds Prices and minimum bet limits: 7/10

Sports Offered

As of this writing, Bovada has 26 category offerings to bet. We don’t want to list these all as “sports” since entertainment, shows, politics, etc. are thrown in there.

One very important note about this list is that Bovada’s soccer league list is incredibly expansive. Besides 5Dimes, they have far and away the best coverage for the sport.

Sports Offerings: 8/10

Mobile Betting

It is fair to say that the Bovada sportsbook mobile site runs very well on both Android and the iPhones that we tested. Logging on, switching between sports, and placing bets is very easy. With the update to the site in July of 2018, Bovada gave the mobile site a very similar look to the desktop site. It reminds us a little bit of the updated style that Microsoft has implemented across it’s Windows systems.One of the things that has become increasingly popular over the past couple of years has been the increase in mobile betting over smartphones. If one does most of their betting from different sports bars, for instance, then one won’t ever have their computer handy. So the need to have a solid mobile web site has become very key and more necessary then ever!

The update has certainly provided a small upgrade over the previous version and the same small issues that we ran into before the update are now gone. This is now one of the best mobile sportsbook sites of all the sportsbooks in which we give a detailed review.

Mobile Betting Platform: 9/10

Payouts

We all play in the sportsbooks to make money, and it is important for a bettor to have a sportsbook that pays out reliably. This is one area in which Bovada may shine the brightest. The options for payouts are seemingly constantly changing, but currently include check by courier, or payout by bitcoin. Most importantly, Bovada offers one free payout every ninety days. The minimum payout for a check payout is now only $100. A check can be requested once a week for an amount up to $3,000. The Bitcoin option is, by far, the better way to go for withdrawals (and deposits). Using this option, the minimum payout is $20 and the maximum is $9,500. Bitcoin can be requested once every five days and the payment comes to the customer almost immediately versus up to two weeks by check.

This convenience is one of the many advantages that Bovada has over the other sportsbooks. It doesn’t take long to figure out that these guys are very reliable.

Ease and price of payouts: 9/10

Promotions

The bonus and promotion area is another place where Bovada has a pretty big edge over it’s competitors. It all starts with a 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit up to 250 dollars. This is pretty much as good as it gets for a deposit bonus in the industry.

Throughout the season, Bovada used to host a variety of promotions over all the major sports. However, in more recent years, they have begun to focus more on their new rewards program which has taken the sportsbook industry by storm. Rewards points, as one can imagine, are earned by placing bets in the sportsbook, casino and racebook. With more points, one can move up into higher tiers where you can get more cash back on losses and earn free play more quickly.

This is one of the major reasons why Bovada is fun. The rewards really do give you a reason to come back and keep betting!

Offers/Promotions: 10/10

Bovada Poker

Bovada reintroduced their poker product in August 2017. To play, the user must download the Bovada Windows program on their computer and install. Since we mostly focus on the sportsbook side of things we will briefly cover the highlights:

• Mobile Poker: Bovada offers a mobile client so that you can play Bovada Poker anywhere from your smartphone.
• Zone Poker: For those poker players who want fast-paced action, this is where you want to play. As soon as the player’s hand is folded, they are directed to another table where the action is about to start again.
• Anonymous Tables: The title pretty much says it all. Here the player can sit down at a table without any other player knowing your tendencies of play.
• Downloadable Hand Histories: 24 hours after the completion of play, the user is able to download complete hand histories from the previous games played. A huge plus is that it includes the hole cards of the players you competed against. This is a great tool for the analytical players who are interested in studying their game.
• Multiple Tournaments: At Bovada, a player can simultaneously sit at up to fifteen different tournaments at once.

Poker: 10/10

Bovada Casino

The Bovada Casino has been around for as long as the Sportsbook and a slew of fun offerings that make a great product. Below is a list of every current casino product that is available in the Bovada Casino.
There are nine different games in the Blackjack family at the Bovada Casino listed below. The standard Blackjack game has all the standard rules, i.e. 3 to 2 Blackjack, dealer hits 17, surrender, etc.

There are a variety of different table games available for your entertainment as well.

Along with these classics, Bovada also offers a variety of different video poker machines and specialty games. There are also over one hundred slot machines available to play as well. We won’t even try to begin to list all of them as they are constantly changing and with Bovada adding new ones all the time.

Casino: 10/10

Pros/Cons

Pro: There are variety of deposit bonuses and promotions that occur through out the year.
Pro: Easy deposits, great customer service and reliable payments.
Pro: Very low minimum bet amounts.
Pro: Casino games, poker, and the horse betting section of the web site is very well done for those who need a break from sports betting.
Pro: Perhaps the best/easiest payout of any sportsbook out there.
Pro: Constantly innovating their site.

Con: Lines come out very late in the day.
Con: The odds are typically not as favorable as you can find at other sportsbooks.

Conclusion

As noted in the opening, we have Bovada listed as our number one sportsbook and they are there for a reason. Bovada is a perfect sportsbook for the amateur bettor who simply wants to place a few bets and enjoy the games. Although we all want to make money, betting is supposed to be fun. Of all the sportsbooks that we ever tested, Bovada is without a doubt the most elite at making betting a pleasurable experience. One thing to note is that Bovada won’t accept “sharps”. Professional bettors, (or someone who is likely to drop a thousand or more on a game) are better off at a book like 5Dimes.

With the updates that they made to their web site in the middle of July 2018, Bovada has shown that they are willing innovate to stay ahead of the game. It should be good news for players that they would take the time to reinvest in their site.