Bodog and Bovada are poised to significantly expand the number of countries served by the two brands, according to a brief e-mail distributed by the company’s affiliate marketing arm earlier today.
Previously, the Bodog/Bovada family of brands had been available in some form in only four countries of significance — China (Bodog88), Vietnam (Bodog88), Canada (the original Bodog brand), and the United States (Bovada for sports betting and casino games, with poker for US players available at the Kahnawake-operated Ignition Casino). The two Bodog88 countries, China and Vietnam, operate as a combined skin and play alongside Canadians at Bodog’s online tables.
The upcoming expansion, which will take effect on Wednesday, February 15th, adds large chunks of Central and South America to the Bodog brand family’s service area. The e-mail sent by Bodog marketing associate firm Betting Partners to the Bodog family’s existing lineup of affiliates was brief:
We are excited to announce that, as of February 15, our partnered brands Bovada and Bodog will be launching their product offerings in Latin America.
Bovada Sports and Casino will be available in Mexico only while Bodog Poker, Casino, and Sports will launch in the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.
English is spoken widely throughout the region, though it is a strong possibility that Spanish- and Portuguese-language services (the latter largely for Brazil) will be added soon both by Bodog and by affiliates wishing to serve the new market. Bodog has not stated whether such non-English service and support will be available. Bodog has previously had a business presence in Costa Rica, a bilingual (English and Spanish) country. Many of Bodog’s global services are currently based in the Philippines, though the network does not offer those services to the Filipino market. As a result, the company has largely steered clear of the online-gambling crackdown recently initiated by the Philippines’ new authoritarian president, Rodrigo Duterte.
Bodog’s very limited reach, measured by the total number of countries served, had dwindled quite a bit in recent years. The highly-regulated and firewalled European market has largely been off-limits to the online world’s most successful and stable “grey market” company, but Central and South America has yet to impose such rigidity.
As for Betting Partners, Bodog’s marketing arm, it offers affiliate signups for several other online brands in addition to Bodog, Bodog88, Bovada and Ignition Casino the US-only poker brand which will remain effectively firewalled. Other BP brand-affiliate offerings include Slots.lv, Cafe Casino, Downtown Casino, and Joe Fortune.
Bodog’s traffic numbers will certainly increase with next week’s expansion, though it’s difficult to state with certainty how much. Network-traffic monitoring site PokerScout has had a bitter feud of sorts with Bodog over PokerScout’s alleged and arguably unauthorized use of proprietary information, with the ultimate fallout that only estimations for the US-based traffic on Ignition (technically no longer owned by Bodog, anyway) are listed there. Supposedly, Ignition Casino’s traffic alone ranks sixth worldwide, while Bodog and Bovada are found nowhere on Scout’s list. This does not mean that Bodog has no traffic on its tables, but rather, that PokerScout, through various happenings, has been disincentivized from tracking that traffic.
Central and South America together have been one of poker’s largest growth areas over the past several years. Bodog could easily double or more its player base once these 15 countries — excepting Mexico, which doesn’t get the poker access — are added to the player pool.
