Quote:
Originally Posted by rakeme
Is this true? I'm just starting to throw a few bets down on Bovada, I play poker mainly.
I don't know this too be true (well maybe - see lower in this post). Maybe OP can share an example of public complaint on this?
They have always had two sets of odds. The popular teams have worst odds and their opponent bettor. As soon as someone shows they have a clue and bets the better ones without touching the bad ones, they change them to the other set of odds going forward (ones bet already still stand). Opinions on the ethics of this vary but same juice for both sets of odds and you can bet what it is presented to you or don't.
From there they do sometimes limit and had some history of using delays for the true sharps. For years though it was hit or miss. Some accounts up mid 5 figures were fine and could keep betting.
Around the time they branched out and started taking Canadians, then started a UK site. They got much more tight. Players were getting limited quickly. This seems to have changed now. But there limits for everyone period are smaller than they have been in the past ($250 to $500 max bets on a lot of games - some of which were $1K/$2K before).
I'm not sure if they still use this or if they just have limited those players but years ago they had delays. Sharp players would try making a bet and it would give them a wait to be accepted. And then come back often with line moved do you want to take it etc. It seems most the people on this delay were very old accounts. These days phone betting is not popular and very few sites use this tactic (it was something players dealt with 10 years ago way way way more often than now). I'd be curious if anyone on Bovada still has a delay as I don't think they use this tactic anymore - because don't have this huge office full of phone reps like they had back then to process those.
The only ghost in their closet type complaints about Bovada to my knowledge is there were some live betting disputes years ago (this might be what OP is referring to). The accusation was that some in-play bets were getting voided as past post (this happens everywhere), but that they were doing this only for the winning ones (pushing them) and letting the losing ones stand. I didn't see hard evidence of this (as in 2 players showing betting slips on an exact market to confirm), but tons of people chimed into say they never had a losing bet be voided as being a past post only losing ones in their history of using that platform. At the time of these complaints Bovada (then Bodog) was one of the few US sites offering in-pay betting on plays (next play run or pass, things like that) not many other sites had that system (WWTS did previously and I think that might even have been what it was based off). Never to my knowledge was resolved, no hard proof to blast them, but from players post did seem likely it was happening (these were small max bets on in-play props - thus didn't get big attention but did on some forums). Did it happen? Probaby, but also not a lock. Were to blame, or the provider? I don't know.. but they denied it and nothing damning enough got posted to blow the topic up enough for widespread attention. (this is off memory only fwiw, it was years ago and I might be remembering some details wrong).
That's what I know about this site. Most people betting there have no problems at all, they don't draw lots of complaints and generally pretty active on forums and can chase someone down and get whatever need to resolved quickly enough. Sometimes needed as their actual support department which in the day was awesome generally answering in half a ring, or emailing back in minutes, and was good (clear English, worked in Canada) has went downhill and is now to the low standard of most other sites.
