If you look at any Bovada review, you will notice how this bookie loves to offer plenty of bets on US sports. But the Bovada esports section has been growing impressively in the past few years, and so we are going to carry out our own Bovada review to see how good the Bovada in-play betting service is.
As well as checking out the Bovada live betting options, our review of Bovada esports betting will also look at some important security features. Our Bovada review will look at the brand’s licensing, payment methods and their customer service facilities too. So read our full Bovada esports review and see whether you should sign up to this bookmaker.
Go to Bovada and place your first Live Esports Bets
Our Bovada esports review took a look at the Bovada live betting area and found that the bookie offered a good choice of in-play bets for top esports like Counter Strike Global Offensive and Dota 2.
Whilst there was no live streaming available in the Bovada in-play betting section, you could follow the live score and make in-play bets on everything from the map winner to the winner of a particular round without too much effort. So although it might not be the best esports in-play service we’ve seen, there’s enough here at the Bovada live betting area to keep most gamers happy.
The next part of our Bovada esports review looked at the bookie’s welcome bonus offer for new customers. We found that Bovada are willing to give you a 50% boost on your first deposit up to $250.
You should be aware that you will need to bet the value of your deposit and bonus funds five times on any of the bookie’s odds otherwise your bonus will be declared void. Whilst these are fairly restrictive wagering conditions, it’s still a respectable offer and it could give you a nice boost on your esports betting profits. Terms and conditions apply, 18+.
Rank | Operator | Max. Bonus | To the Operator |
---|---|---|---|
|
300$
200% on deposit | ||
GG.Bet Review | |||
|
20000$
300% on deposit | ||
BC.Game Review | |||
|
500$
100% on deposit | ||
Thunderpick Review |
Bovada might not include the largest range of payment methods, but there’s enough here to cater to most esports fans. At the moment, you can use credit and debit cards like Visa and MasterCard or even use Bitcoin to make deposits and withdrawals.
Whilst your first deposits are free, Bovada will charge a 5.9% commission fee for all subsequent card deposits. Similarly, although your first Bitcoin withdrawal is free, if you make another withdrawal within a 100 day period, then you will get a hefty $100 processing fee from Bovada. You can make card deposits from $20, and Bitcoin deposits from $10.
As Bovada are geared towards US sports, it’s no real surprise to find that their betting site uses the American odds format. Whilst this might be confusing for some European betting fans, it’s actually fairly easy to get used to and makes it simple to calculate your potential winnings.
We carried out a quick odds comparison test for Bovada’s coverage of the ESL One tournament in Cologne and found that the bookie offered a broadly similar selection of odds to their rivals. And if you use these odds in conjunction with the Bovada welcome bonus, you could easily make some decent esports betting profits.
If you click on any of Bovada’s esports events, then you should be able to see a good variety of betting markets. Obviously, these include a basic match winner bet, but there are some more interesting options that could be worth a shot.
So for a standard CSGO match, you could make bets on the map winner, the total number of rounds in a map, and even guess the correct score of the overall match. All of which should give you plenty of flexibility when coming up with your in-play betting strategies.
Before you sign up to any betting site, you should always double-check to see whether that site is licensed to offer legal gambling. If the site fails to display licensing from an approved regulatory body, it means that you could have very little in the way of customer protection.
This is why we were troubled to find little evidence of any kind of licensing on the Bovada site. Whilst the Bovada brand is well-known amongst sports betting fans, this oversight could cost them big unless they make some important changes to clearly illustrate that they are a legal gambling operator.
If you head to the Help section of the Bovada website, you will find clear information about their betting limits. These state that you can win up to $2,500 on major US sports like American football, but we couldn’t find any information about how much you can win on your esports bets.
Thankfully, the bookmaker state that you can make a minimum bet of just $1, so as long as you don’t expect to win massive amounts of money, you shouldn’t be too frustrated by using the Bovada site.
The Bovada website is laid out in a relatively intuitive way, and it’s fairly simple to click through the tabs to find your relevant esports bets. Whilst the site was a little slow to load, it gave you easy ways to do anything from logging into your account to accessing the help section.
Bovada have also catered well to their mobile customers, as they have created great betting apps for iOS, Android and even Windows mobile devices to help you enjoy esports betting on the go.
If you click on the Contact Us tab, then you will get to see an email form that can be used for contacting a Bovada customer service representative. In addition to this, you can easily use the quick and easy live chat feature that’s a great way for getting a quick and efficient response.
Bovada have also created a very helpful Help section on their site that is full of useful articles relating to all aspects of the sportsbook.
You’ll probably already know about the US sports bets featured at the Bovada site, but the bookie also includes a good amount of odds for everything from football to tennis and even horse racing.
We also liked the fact that Bovada had included a casino gaming section that had plenty of slots games and immersive live casino games like blackjack, super 6, roulette and baccarat.
Final verdict on the Bovada esports betting experience
Bovada initially appeared to offer customers a great esports betting service. With a generous welcome bonus, plenty of esports betting markets, and reasonably competitive odds, it seemed that Bovada was more than ready to take on the competition.
However, upon closer inspection it seems that this bookmaker has a few things that it will need to work on. Whilst the lack of live streaming options is just about excusable, we can’t really recommended any betting site that fails to clearly display its relevant licensing.
So until Bovada do more to show that they are legally allowed to facilitate esports betting, we might have to recommend that gamers look elsewhere for their live esports bets.