I news out of nowhere, Bovada, the world’s largest offshore poker site that accepts U.S. customers, announced Tuesday that it has sold its poker operations to the little-known Ignition Casino.
In an e-mail to customers, Bovada said:
We have important news we want to share with you. Bovada Poker has been acquired by Ignition Casino. This means you’ll be required to transfer your account by September 30, 2016. After this date, poker at Bovada will no longer be available. You’ll still have access to Bovada’s sportsbook, casino and racebook products.
Ignition Casino uses the same platform as Bovada, so the features you enjoy such as anonymous tables, Zone poker, mobile poker and guaranteed tournaments, like the weekly $100K, will be there waiting for you. Both sites will also operate simultaneously with shared player pools until the transition is complete. Any Poker Points that you have accrued on Bovada will need to be used before September 30 as they will not carry over to Ignition Casino.
We’ll do everything we can to make this transition as easy as possible. Please be sure to visit our FAQ page where you’ll find information on account transfers, how to score your generous migration bonus, what to do with your Poker Points and any other questions you may have.
Similar message, along with a FAQ page, is presented to players on the Bovada Poker website.
The industry is currently searching for answers as to why this is happening, particularly because almost nothing is known about Ignition, which is owned by Lynton Limited. There appears to be some sort of pre-existing relationship between Bovada and Ignition, as they are both licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC), both have extremely similar websites, and both currently share poker player pools. It essentially looks like Ignition has been operating as a skin of Bovada.
PartTimePoker.com also points out that Lynton Limited has three gambling domains that are licensed by the KGC: IgnitionCasino.eu, CafeCasino.lv, and Slots.lv. That is of interest because Bovada also uses a “dot lv” domain (it stands for Latvia, not Las Vegas) and it, along with CafeCasino.lv and Slots.lv are the only three sites with Latvian domains licensed by the KGC.
Thus, there is some speculation that this could be more of a transfer of assets between two related companies, perhaps a parent and a subsidiary, than an pure sale of one business to another. We really don’t know, as there is barely any information out there about Lynton or Salmon River Technologies, the company that holds Bovada’s license.
The other question is why is Bovada doing this? Bovada Poker has been doing very well, sitting comfortably as the third largest poker room on the internet in terms of cash game traffic, according to PokerScout.com. It has a seven day average of 1,400 cash game players, well ahead of fourth place partypoker, which has 1,150. It benefited from staying in the U.S. market after Black Friday, soaking up many of the customers that PokerStars, Full Tilt, Absolute Poker, and UltimateBet left behind, as well as implementing anonymous tables, which is appealing to recreational players who don’t want to be tracked by pros.
Bovada will keep its casino and sports book going, but players are already grumbling that the transfer of poker accounts to Ignition will both cause the player traffic at the new site to take a hit and make the poker population there more “nitty.” Part of the appeal of Bovada for serious players is that it was attached to the sports book, allowing sports bettors to easily drop money at the poker tables. Without that connection, the fear is that Bovada sports bettors won’t bother moving their poker accounts over to Ignition.
Bovada and Ignition players will share the same tables until October 1st. Those who transfer their accounts over will be eligible for additional bonuses.
