Bovada, a well-known online gambling brand, offering poker, casino, and sports betting, has announced they will be opening their doors to players from New York State once again.
Bovada is one of several larger brands catering to the US market but they have banned several individual states, including NY, due to very strict laws there.
Now, the brand will be re-opening to New York State players once again, together with other sister brands Slots.lv and Cafe Casino, while Ignition Poker will also continue to operate as normal.
Bovada players from New York who previously had their accounts suspended or closed should keep an eye on their inboxes, as the site will be contacting them with an opportunity to re-open them.
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Bovada in and out of the US
Over the past few years, Bovada has been in and out of the US. Back in 2016, they announced their withdrawal from the market, while introducing Ignition Casino and poker room.
At that point, many believed Ignition Casino was actually owned by the same company and Bovada was only doing it to distance the brand from the US.
In 2017, however, Bovada has announced it would be coming back to the United States once again. Bovada was licensed for a number of years by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission for a while, but after being dropped by the KGC, decided not to seek a new license elsewhere and continue as a self-licensed operator.
Five states excluded upon return
When Bovada decided to come back to the US, they came back to a still unregulated market, which meant they would continue to operate in a grey zone at best. However, they did make an operative decision to withdraw their services for players from five states, namely:
- Nevada
- New Jersey
- Delaware
- Maryland
- New York
The first three on the list are US states with their own poker laws, i.e. offering their own, regulated online poker sites. The last two, Maryland and New York, have strong anti-online gambling laws, which caused Bovada to withdraw for the time being.
Bovada coming back to New York State
The latest news coming from several sources seem to suggest that the gambling operator has decided to reconsider its position once again and came up with a decision that New York players would be allowed back on the site.
At this point, there is nothing to suggest why people behind Bovada made this decision as not much has formally changed as of yet from a legal perspective. There have been some movements in terms of legislation, with several bills coming in and out of the procedure in New York, which could mean that the overall climate for online poker is finally starting to change in NY.
Whether these developments have something to do with the change or not is unclear, but, moving forward, players from New York will be once again able to deposit, play, and withdraw from Bovada, which is certainly good news, considering somewhat limited number of options for online poker in the United States.
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Bethany has been working in online gambling for over 13 years. She got her start in the industry as her first job after graduating from the Professional Writing Program at York University. Having written for many online gaming publications and worked with top casino operators, she has unique insight into the gambling market. Bethany maintains a personal interest in iGaming as she continues to play poker online as a hobby.