Online Gambling

Bovada.lv has opened its doors to US-based real-money players. In addition to a sportsbook, Bovada has an online casino, an online poker room, and an online racebook.

Note: Contrary to what you might think, .lv does not stand for Las Vegas — it stands for Latvia.

Bovada Sports

BOVADA embarks on its own road, armed with the experience and talent to quickly become the industry’s powerhouse brand and the most trusted and most fun place to bet on sports.

New Depositors benefit from a Free Sports Bet up to $100 - while many lean on signup bonuses in trying to earn your business, BOVADA is focused on providing free wagers up to 20% of your deposit. That free bet can be up to a maximum of $100 and it can be used on any sports market or wager type in the sportsbook.

Props and underdog odds - BOVADA has an unmatched variety of prop bets. You will find more betting options on Sports, Politics and entertainment than anywhere else.

Live betting – mobile betting - BOVADA is available on the go. They Offer live- Betting and mobile betting options from a variety of portable devices. Join BOVADA and learn more today.

Easy-to-understand website -BOVADA offers betting on every major sport and carefully steers you where you need to go each day. Find your favorite team, or odds type in a snap, whether you are betting the late baseball game on the moneyline or the quarterback props on Monday Night Football.

Best customer service, best sports stats - looking for trends, matchup details and game previews before going to the betting menu? BOVADA offers statistics on all major sports so you don’t need to venture far to do your research and handicapping. Need to contact customer service? You can always get a real, live, knowledgeable person who can help answer your questions. Customer Satisfaction is a top priority at BOVADA.

Your information is safe - security, privacy and payouts are three of the most important aspects of playing online. BOVADA’s pledge is 100% safety and satisfaction in all three areas and has independent oversight to make sure you have the best betting experience in their sportsbook. So when it’s time to feel comfortable about playing online, BOVADA is synonymous with this trust.

(For those familiar with Bodog, Bovada is the US-facing rebranding of Bodog.)

As I recently blogged, NuWorks is a new online casino software vendor. It is being used by only a few sites, one of which is US-friendly BuzzLuck Online Casino.

BuzzLuck offers 1, 3, 10, 52, and 100 hand versions of Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, and Joker Poker video poker. Looking at their paytables for single-hand quarter video poker, and assuming optimal play and max coins in:

• Their Jacks or Better video poker is the best. They have a full-pay paytable with a return of 99.54%. You won’t find a better Jacks or Better video poker paytable anywhere, either online or in land-based casinos.
• The Deuces Wild returns 98.91%. This is decent, and matches the best return that you can find at any online casino that accepts US players.
• You can skip their Joker Poker video poker with its 98.40% return. BoDog rocks Joker Poker with its incredible 99.97% payback.

To attract the real video poker player, NuWorks/BuzzLuck are going to have to:

• Add more video poker varieties. Double Double Bonus comes to mind.
• Support keyboard shortcuts for card selection a dealing.
• Provide a way to turn off the double-or-nothing screen that annoyingly appears after each win.

For the first time in a long time, there is a new player in the online casino software world. That new vendor is NuWorks. The NuWorks online casino software appears to be based on the Real Time Gaming (RTG) code base, but the graphics are much improved, and the game play is much smoother. Overall, it appears to be a major upgrade to RTG that has been rebranded as NuWorks.

NuWorks casinos are starting to appear on the Internet. As of now, there are just two online casinos that run NuWorks. Of the two — Buzzluck Online Casino and Lucky Club Casino — I have been playing at Buzzluck since they have a much better new player initial deposit bonus of 100% up to $868.

Buzzluck has 24 online slots and 4 table games (baccarat, blackjack, Tri Card Poker, and Let’em Ride). They also have 1, 3, 10, 52, and 100 hand versions of Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, and Joker Poker video poker.

All this week, I will be blogging about their new slots, and posting an analysis of their payback schedules for their table games and video poker.

For you video poker enthusiasts, I’ve increased the number of video poker varieties that are analyzed on my video poker page from 15 to 18. The recently-added varieties of online video poker are:

• Loose Deuces: There are three online casino software vendors that offer this video poker; the paytables are the same at all of them; the house edge is 0.93%. You can play it at Bodog, Real Time Gaming online casinos like Intertops RED, and Grand Virtual online casinos.
• Triple Bonus: Not recommended. The house edge is a whopping 9.98%!
• Triple Double Bonus: Double Double Bonus video poker on steriods. There are two online casino software vendors that offer this video poker; the house edge ranges from 0.43% to 1.85%. Unfortunately, Grand Virtual online casinos — where the better paytable is offered — are not available to US residents. You can find the less desirable paytable at BetOnSoft online casinos like Treasure Mile.
• Super Double Bonus: Dealt at Grand Virtual online casinos, the house edge is 1.32%.

Offer valid in USD as well as EUR.

As I mentioned in a previous post, BetOnSoft online casinos are a new online casino software provider in the US market. The BetOnSoft online casinos (listed below) offer seven popular varieties of video poker including Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Bonus Deuces Wild, Bonus Poker Deluxe, Bonus Poker, Double Bonus, Double Double Bonus, Triple Double Bonus, and Joker Poker. Futhermore, each of these video pokers is offered as single-handed, ten-handed, and fifty-handed varieties.

I’ve updated the video poker pages for Jacks or Better, Deuces Wild, Bonus Deuces Wild, Bonus Poker Deluxe, Bonus Poker, Double Bonus, Double Double Bonus, and Joker Poker to include the return tables for the BetOnSoft online casinos. As it turns out, their return tables are simply outstanding. As two examples, the return on their Bonus Poker is 99.50% and their return on their Bonus Poker Deluxe is 99.45% — both of these return percentages are highest among all online casinos for those video poker games.

Any of these video poker games can be played for as little as a penny per credit, all the way up to $5 per credit in single-handed mode, $2 per credit in ten-handed mode, and $1 per credit in fifty-handed mode.

If video poker is your game, you’ll want to take a hard look at one or more of the BetOnSoft online casinos. Start with Treasure Mile; here is a list of other BetOnSoft online casinos. Be aware that if you take advantage of the Treasure Mile 100% initial deposit bonus (use bonus code TM1000), video poker counts as only 10% toward meeting the 20 x (deposit + bonus) playthrough requirement associated with the bonus. So, if you only played video poker with your initial deposit and bonus, you essentially have to meet a 400 x deposit playthrough before you can make a withdrawal.

Offer valid in USD as well as EUR.

You may be surprised to learn that most online bingo halls are adding slot machines, video poker, and even some table games like blackjack. This is good news for online players, since online bingo rooms have typically been flying under the radar of  UIGEA enforcement. For a variety of reasons, online bingo rooms have a higher credit card deposit acceptance rate than online casinos and online poker rooms; this makes it easier for players to get into the game and have some fun.

Not only are online bingo halls adding non-bingo games, the payback on some of these games is the best you’ll find at any online property. For example, Bingo Entertainment Network sites offer a 99.54% payback on Jacks or Better video poker; you’ll not find a better payback online than this!

Here are some good picks for online bingo halls on the Bingo Entertainment Network, all of which accept players from all 50 states.

Bingo Splash
100% bonus on initial deposits between $20 and $1000!
At Bingo Splash you’ll meet really … of you at Bingo Splash…there’s 24/7 Customer Support … our Help section. At Bingo Splash there’s entertainment all … day!! You can play Bingo, Video Poker, 3-4-5 …[Full Description]
Languages: Currencies:

Bingo Empire
100% bonus on initial deposits between $20 and $1000!
At Bingo Empire you’ll meet really … care of you at Bingo Empire…there’s 24/7 Customer Support … our Help section. At Bingo Empire there’s entertainment all … day!! You can play Bingo, Video Poker, 3 …[Full Description]
Languages: Currencies:

Premier Bingo
100% bonus on initial deposits between $20 and $1000!
At Premier Bingo you’ll meet really sociable … Help section. At Premier Bingo there’s entertainment all day!! … day!! You can play Bingo, Video Poker, 3-4-5 Reel …[Full Description]
Languages: Currencies:

Mainstreet Bingo
100% bonus on initial deposits between $20 and $1000!
At Mainstreet Bingo you’ll meet really sociable … Help section. At Mainstreet Bingo there’s entertainment all day!! … day!! You can play Bingo, Video Poker, 3-4-5 Reel …[Full Description]
Languages: Currencies:

Glamour Bingo
100% bonus on initial deposits between $20 and $1000!
At Glamour Bingo you’ll meet really sociable … Help section. At Glamour Bingo there’s entertainment all day!! … day!! You can play Bingo, Video Poker, 3-4-5 Reel …[Full Description]
Languages: Currencies:

Ten of the sixteen most popular online gambling software vendors deal Tens or Better Online Video Poker. The house percentage on these games ranges from a worse of 3.74% at Parlay Entertainment sites to a best of 0.87% at Microgaming, Rival, Vegas Tech, Grand Virtual, Boss, and Playsafe sites. (I prefer Rival online casinos over the others, because it also offers the best odds on other varieties of video poker.)

Play Tens or Better at these top-rated Rival gaming sites.

Joker Poker online video poker is video poker played with a standard 52-card deck plus a Joker. The minimum paying hand is a pair of Kings or Better, as opposed to a pair of Jacks or Better that is most often the minimum paying hand for video poker games without a Joker. What makes Joker Poker so appealing is that paytables do exist that offer an advantage to the player — if played optimally, of course.

While there is no Joker Poker offered online that has a player edge (also referred to as a +EV, for “positive expected value”), Bodog.com online casino comes close at 99.97%.

For a complete analysis of all forms of online video poker, see my online video poker page.

Deuces Wild (DW) online video poker is an exciting variant of video poker in which 2s are wild. Your bankroll will experience a lot of ups and downs relative to other forms of video poker because your return is based more on higher paying hands than in, for example, plain old generic Jacks or Better.

Optimal play in Deuces Wild will often dictate that you throw away all 5 dealt cards, so be prepared to simply “try again” on a fair number of hands in order to try for the all-power wild cards. For example, when dealt a hand that excludes 2s, a pair, a four-flush

The vast majority of online gambling sites offer Deuces Wild video poker, but not all of them offer a decent payout to players. Grand Virtual offers the best return to players at a whopping 99.72%, but not all players from all regions are accepted at Grand Virtual online casinos; for example, U.S. players are excluded, as are players from other countries. The next-best choices are the Rival Gaming online casinos, offering a 99.37% return. The download version of the BetUS.com Casino is a Rival Gaming casino, and BetUS.com Casino (unlike other Rival Gaming casinos) accepts players from all 50 US states.

For a complete analysis of all forms of online video poker, see my online video poker page.