So far our phone lines, online chat and email box have been inundated with the same question: “Why did bodog change its website?” or “Why is bodog now Bovada?”

As of today (December 14th, 2011) the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group (MMGG) will no longer operate under the Bodog name. MMGG’s brand licensing agreement with the Bodog Brand is expiring at the end of this year and as a result MMGG will no longer be offering its services using the Bodog name or from the website, bodog.eu. Instead U.S. players will be moved to the new brand, Bovada.

What does this mean for players?
• All accounts remain entirely the same. U.S. players only need to log in at www.bovada.lv
• The business is still owned and operated by the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group, as it has been for the past several years.
• The same great products and games, payout methods and phone number will all stay the same.

Basically this is nothing different that when industry giant BetCRIS spun off its U.S. players into their Bookmaker brand back in 2007. Nothing changed, in fact, many players thought that the new brand with mostly U.S. specific sports and props was even better. We expect that same from the new Bovada. One nice thing that they have introduced is a new Poker platform where players are basically anonymous when they are playing. This prevents expert or pro players for fishing and data mining new or poor players so that they can go after them in tournaments and ring games.

Players should be automatically re-directed from their respective jurisdictions to the correct site. Bodog has done an excellent job of geo-location and when we tried this morning to go to Bodog, we immediately were redirected to the new bovada.lv domain. A redirect message as to why you are being re-directed will also appear.

Bodog has had to change their domain name in the past due to legal issues as well as the ongoing war that the U.S. is waging against online gambling companies that service U.S. customers, but this is not another name change. Instead it is the gaming giant’s parent company MMGG opening a new brand for U.S. customers. This is simply a way to differentiate between the different offerings from the company, while expanding Bodog into most of the top jurisdictions around the world where gambling online is legal.