As of September 30th, 2016 Bovada Poker becomes Ignition Casino. One of the most popular and largest poker sites available for US players closes its doors. Ignition will take over the operation and it seems there aren’t many differences between Bovada and Ignition…
Bovada Poker, Bodog and now Ignition
Bodog, one of the biggest names in the online gaming industry has been in business since 1994. Considered by many a true marketing giant, a decade ago Bodog was followed closely by its competitors due to their genius and aggressive marketing campaigns. It was not unusual to see their promotions, designs and slogans copied by others in the industry.
In the early 2000’s Bodog was for sure in the list of the top 5 biggest online sportbooks and casinos in the world. It was the right move for them to enter the poker business and they did it quite successfully.
The brand was quite strong and used to offer a $100,000 guaranteed tournament weekly, which was a bold move since their 
player database was not that large as Pokerstars or Full Tilt at the time. In addition, poker pros such as David Williams and Evelyn NG were part of team Bodog. Other pros who were part of their roster for a while included Justin Bonomo, Tatjana Pasalic and Amanda Musumeci.
Some months after poker’s Black Friday, Bodog re branded in the US as Bovada to avoid major legal issues as it happened with poker sites like Pokerstars, Full Tilt, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet, the last 2 nowadays no longer exist.
Ignition Acquisition
Early on August 2016 it was announced that Bovada would continue offering sports betting and online casino services, however their poker operations were sold to Ignition Casino. Players were informed that they have until September 30th, 2016 to transfer their account to the Ignition platform.
Ignition Casino has been in business since early 2016 and one interesting detail is that their poker platform has been the same as the one used Bovada-Bodog. As a matter of fact, both poker rooms are almost identical so players moving from Bovada to Ignition won’t feel a major difference.
Ignition Casino offers games provided by Betsoft, Genesis Gaming, Real Time Gaming and Rival. The website is quite complete; however the site does not offer sports betting. Additional games available at Ignition Casino include Bingo, Scratch Cards and Keno.
Ignition Poker
As mentioned before, the poker room at Ignition Casino has pretty much the same features as the ones offered at Bovada. The software is quite user friendly and accepts players from the US.
The sign up bonus is 100% up to $100 and its awarded in 4 installments. The first installment of $5 is released upon achieving 15 poker points. The second $20 installment is released once 85 poker points are won. The third $25 bonus is awarded once 185 points are achieved and the final $50 installment at 400 poker points. The bonus is active for 30 days after the initial deposit has been made.
The biggest tournament takes place on Sundays at 4:00pm ET. The buy-in is $162 and the guaranteed prize pool is $100,000! The winner takes home at least $20,000. There are plenty of satellites and players can qualify for as low as $1.
Other special promotions at Ignition Poker include a Bad Beat bonus of up to $1000 when losing Aces Full of Kings. Also there is up to a $200 cash prize at the ring games of Ignition Poker when hitting a Royal Flush with both pocket cards used. Probably the most attractive promotion is the exchange of poker points for tournament tickets. Players at Ignition are allowed to exchange 200 points for $1 in tournament entries.
Conclusion
The acquisition of Bovada Poker by Ignition Casino allows current players at Bovada and new sign ups from the US to continue enjoying the excitement of online poker. Many have doubts about this business transaction since it looks more as a re-branding strategy than an online poker room purchase. The good news at the end of the day is that the game continues, tournaments and ring games are still happening and US players still have a reliable poker site where to prove their skills.
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