Bovada account, temporaily under investigation for over 2 months

**pologq** · 01-10-23, 10:32 AM

sbr does not handle offshore sportsbooks now unfortunately. what exactly was the issue with VPN - describe please.

**Optional** · 01-10-23, 11:27 AM

Originally posted by SKolar

Hello,
I would like to get some mediation, correspondence, or general advice in an ongoing issue I have with Bovada. They abruptly, temporarily closed my account for investigation "due to suspicious activity" back on November 4th, when requesting the max $9500 btc withdrawal. Total account value is roughly $12,000

This is a verified account that has made withdrawals before and has gone through the KYC process.

The withdrawal prior to this 9500 withdrawal, I received a message from Bovada saying that they detected possible VPN usage. This makes sense because I was accessing the site on my work computer. I called customer service immediately and asked them if I could just use a different device and everything would be fine, and they said it would. I stopped using my work computer and all VPNs after that while using Bovada and everything seemed to be fine...until the most recent withdrawal.

It has been over 2 months with 0 correspondence from the Bovada investigations team. When I call Bovada or use their live chat they say that the funds are still there and I just have to wait for the investigations team to email me. There seems to be no requests from their end, no way to communicate with them, no way to escalate this. It is very frustrating.

I have read several threads on reddit and twitter about closed accounts/investigations.

Let me start by saying that none of the following common situations have occurred:

1) Same household as another user
2) Same IP as another user because I "logged in at their house" (no one ever believes those people right?)
3) Abuse of referral program (I am not registered to that)
4) Abuse of any TOS I can even think of

Please let me know if SBR has any advice or is able to reach out on my behalf to get this resolved amicably. It has been incredibly stressful these past few months wondering what is going on with my funds. Sometimes when I call to check up (hoping that maybe they will give me a different answer than to keep waiting), the customer service rep seems shocked that it has been under investigation for this long.

(Also if this is not the proper way to file a complaint using SBR I greatly apologize. I clicked the "complaint" link from contact us and it directed me to the Sportsbooks & Industry forum, but no specific post or complaint form)

SBR no longer mediates for Bovada but making posts about this on here and other gambling forums is a good idea and might help speed them up.

2 months is not reasonable to leave you waiting with no requests or no info.

The good news is that it sounds to me like you are not the actual subject of their investigation. I'd guess they are checking connections between multiple accounts if you are not asked for more and it takes this long. The person/s caught out probably just do not send the needed docs for example.

Your best course of action is to post on the Bovada Community forum and ask the mods there to try and get some management help to review what's going on for you https://community.bovada.lv/

**SKolar** · 01-10-23, 12:58 PM

the issue with the VPN is that apparently using a VPN is against the TOS for Bovada. Like at all. Again not something I am used to on the internet unless the website a) blocks the vpn, or b) makes it explicitly clear (and not just tucked away in the TOS) that they dont want you to use a vpn.

But if thats the rule I am fine abiding by it. Just wish it had been more visible or obvious.

Even so, having been warned, talking with them about it, and then complying, I would find it to be incredibly bad practice for them to use that as an excuse to confiscate funds.

I am sad to hear that SBR doesn't handle offshore anymore. One of the only forces in the betting world that seems to have had any sway with them in the past.

**SKolar** · 01-10-23, 12:59 PM

Thanks Optional, I will try my luck in the community forums and see if I can get some traction going.

**vampire assassin** · 01-10-23, 04:01 PM

What kind of wagers were you putting in? I know some other people with frozen (and eventually confiscated) accounts that were betting manipulated or fixed matches. Were you parlaying key games?

**SKolar** · 01-10-23, 08:35 PM

Originally posted by vampire assassin

What kind of wagers were you putting in? I know some other people with frozen (and eventually confiscated) accounts that were betting manipulated or fixed matches. Were you parlaying key games?

I mostly bet esports and NFL/NBA player props. While matchfixing isn't unheard of in esports, I can say that if I bet on any that were fixed I was unaware of it, and it was just as likely the bet went against me as for me. I dont have any inside info for stuff like that. I usually bet on tier 1 tournaments so a much less lower likelihood of that sort of stuff happeniny anyways.

Not sure what you mean by parlaying key games but on the rare occasion I used a parlay I am confident it wasnt breaking any ToS

**vampire assassin** · 01-11-23, 10:09 AM

Originally posted by SKolar

I mostly bet esports and NFL/NBA player props. While matchfixing isn't unheard of in esports, I can say that if I bet on any that were fixed I was unaware of it, and it was just as likely the bet went against me as for me. I dont have any inside info for stuff like that. I usually bet on tier 1 tournaments so a much less lower likelihood of that sort of stuff happeniny anyways.

Not sure what you mean by parlaying key games but on the rare occasion I used a parlay I am confident it wasnt breaking any ToS

Imagine you're certain you're going to win game "A". That is the key game.

If you parlay A to B
and A to C
and A to D

You're using parlays to circumvent their limits, since unflagged accounts there can bet the parlays in other combos. I know a person who had his balance seized doing that at Bovada.

Were you max-betting? Putting a team in more than one parlay?

**SKolar** · 01-11-23, 03:32 PM

Originally posted by vampire assassin

Imagine you're certain you're going to win game "A". That is the key game.

If you parlay A to B
and A to C
and A to D

You're using parlays to circumvent their limits, since unflagged accounts there can bet the parlays in other combos. I know a person who had his balance seized doing that at Bovada.

Were you max-betting? Putting a team in more than one parlay?

I see what you mean. I won't say I have never used the same team in the different parlays but never anything that I would consider circumventing limits.

Is this even against their TOS the way you described? Other books just have a parlay limit for each line. I'm surprised Bovada doesn't have the same.

**SKolar** · 01-24-23, 09:36 AM

Wanted to provide an update for visibility and so others are aware of what Bovada is up to.

Day 82. Silence from their end. I cant access their community forums with a "temporarily" disabled account either so that avenue was a dead end unfortunately.

I have reached out to somewhere that deals with offshore books and maybe that will lead somewhere.

Be careful out there everyone.

**SKolar** · 01-31-23, 07:12 PM

Update: 88 days.

I called the customer service line again, to be told that my account was still under review and no one there, even a manager could access the file because investigations is another department. They said I could not contact investigations by phone.

I emailed investigations and services, requesting an update as 3 months is a ridiculously long time for an investigation. I received a "your request has been acknowledged" email the next day. That was 5 days ago. No further communication.

I don't really understand what could even be happening anymore. If they thought something was wrong they would just close my account. This long investigation with no requests, updates, communication, etc is just baffling me.

I will keep providing updates in case this helps anyone in the future or maybe someone from Bovada sees this and realizes my file has been buried on someone's desk for 3 months

**thebigcurt** · 08-14-23, 11:05 AM

Any update on this?

**Stallion** · 08-14-23, 06:17 PM

Bovada has been stiffing players recently. I wish you good luck, but I wouldnt get my hopes up.

**Bryan T** · 08-17-23, 08:49 PM

Nothing new. And people like standing up for these criminal books. Check their sbr rating. Nosedived as soon as they quit paying