Bodog Review – Best Betting Site for UK Residents
Bodog is one the most safe and secure websites for UK residents to wager with. In case you’re not aware ALL of the UK’s largest bookmakers including William Hill, Ladbrokes and Betfair no longer operate their internet divisions from the United Kingdom. www.bodog.co.uk on the other hand operates with both a remote and non-remote gambling license issued by the UK government’s Gambling Commission. With a history dating back to 1994 – and backing from Calvin Ayre who’s made Forbes Magazine’s list of billionaires – this is a great site for anyone looking to wager football, cricket, rugby, Formula 1 or any other sport.
Bodog Markets
Bodog’s focus is first and foremost football. For the 2009 and 2010 seasons they were the official betting and gaming partner of London’s oldest first class football club, Fulham FC. During this run something historic happened. Bodog who was one the largest bookies in the world, but never took a bet in person, finally broke into the offline market. On 22 August 2010, Bodog-sponsored Fulham FC was hosting EPL powerhouse Manchester United. When fans arrived to historic Craven Cottage Stadium, they were greeted with Bodog betting booths staffed with Bodog Girls ready to take 
their bets. Now that they hold a UK bookmakers license, it’s probably only a matter of time before Bodog is London’s next high street bookmaker. This season however (2011-2012 Premier League) Bodog is not with Fulham, but rather are the on-shirt sponsors of West Bromwich Albion.
£10 Risk Free Bet Offer – Claim Here
As you can see, most of Bodog’s marketing exposure and player traffic comes from football fans. So for this sport you’ll find it all covered, including dozens of in-play matches daily, and all the popular betting options prematch for all leagues from around the world. Of course you’ll find the majors in the UK like Premier League, Europa League and the big four elsewhere in the Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga, and MLS from the US. Bodog also covers football from everywhere else around the globe. It would take a page to list them all, but some of the additional inclusions by name are Chilean Primera Division, Czech 1. Liga, Danish Superligaen, Finnish Veikkausliiga, French Ligue, Greek Super League, Irish Premier League, Mexican Primera Division, Norwegian Eliteserien, Polish Ekstraklasa, Portuguese Primeira Liga, Romanian 1st League, Russian Premier League, Swiss Challenge League and Turkish Superlig. Again, this doesn’t even come close to covering it all.
Football might be their bread and butter, but Bodog also offers cricket, rugby, tennis, darts, Formula 1, handball, snooker, golf, cycling and all the American sports as well. The good news is no matter which sport you’re looking to wager – Bodog is willing to offer you free money just for trying out their website.
Bodog Free Bet Offers
£10 Risk Free Bet – When youvisit the Bodog website you’ll be welcomed with a risk free wager. Claiming it is a three step process. 1. Open and register a new account, 2. Deposit and stake £10 on odds of even (2.00) or greater. 3. If you failed to back a winner, Bodog will give you a free £10 bet. (more details here). Although this isn’t the largest bonus you’ll find on UK focused betting reviews £10 free is still ten more quid than you have now and would be silly to decline.
Fully Integrated Casino and Poker
At Bodog it is possible to wager in their online casino, or play online poker using a single account balance. In addition to their £10 Risk Free Bet promotion for sports, Bodog has the following generous bonuses available for their other products.
£50.00 Free Casino Bonus – To claim this generous bonus, download the new Bodog casino and open a Bodog account. Next click on “Bonuses” and then “Casino Code” and from this page enter the code CASINOBONUS1. When you make a cash deposit £50 or greater you’ll receive a 100% match. This bonus requires a 40X play-through which can be met at any games other than Single Deck and Double Deck Blackjack, Baccarat, Sic Bo, Craps, Lucky Wheel, Casino Hold’Em and Roulette.
$1000 Poker Bonus – For the first 60-days you have a Bodog account, all of your deposits will be matched 100% towards a poker bonus, up to the maximum of $1,000 free. As you play in their poker room the bonus is released based on reaching poker point milestones. For 100 points – $10, 500 points – $40, 1,500 points $100, 3,000 points $150, 6,000 points $300, 10,000 points $400 (if you add those together you’ll see they total $1,000). Earning Poker Points: When playing real money ring games 0.1 points are earned for a pot raked $0.05 to $0.20 – 0.25 points for a pot raked $0.25 to $0.45, 0.5 points for a pot raked $0.50 to $0.95 – and 1 point for all pots raked $1.00 or more. In tournaments each dollar paid in entry fees earns 3 points. So for an example a $50+$5 SNG will earn you $5×3 points = 15 Bodog Poker points. This is about the equivalent of 30% rakeback, and the games are so soft that it is very worth it for any serious poker player to take this bonus over bonuses offered at other sites.
Keep in mind you can take advantage of both the casino and poker bonus as well as Bodog’s £10 Risk Free Bet.
Bodog Money Matters
Bodog has a long history of making deposits and withdrawals a hassle free process. 12-years ago, before e-wallets even existed – Bodog was the first to settle accounts with next day ACH e-checks. In 2011, obvious UK punters have the luxury of using credit card, wire, PaySafeCard, Neteller, Moneybookers and other e-wallets. The good news is all these methods are accepted at Bodog, and when comes time to cash out – you can rest assured e-wallet withdrawals are processed in a matter of hours as opposed to the days it takes at other online bookmakers.
Bold Prediction: Bodog Will Become a UK Powerhouse Brand
When it comes to online sports gambling – there is no shortage of critics and skeptics. Likewise it seems many betting review sites are hesitant to start marketing Bodog as a serious UK brand. The reason for this is Bodog for years had a reputation as the biggest and best gambling site in the US market. Founder Calvin Ayre sold everything he had in 1994, scraping up $10,000 cash to begin the Bodog brand. It took less than a dozen years to parlay his startup capital and hard work into a spot on the Forbes Magazine’s list of billionaires. Most US and Canada residents are well familiar with his story which why Bodog often becomes associated with North America.
What I want to point out however is bodog.co.uk is not some American website targeted at UK punters. In fact, Bodog left the US market in 2008. Since this time their brand name has been licensed by Morris Mohawk Gaming Group whose contract expires at the end of this year. So from January 1, 2012 on – it will no longer be possible for US residents to wager at any site that uses the Bodog brand name. When Bodog left this market in 2008, they immediately began focusing on Europe. Since this time they’ve hired some amazing staff.
Bodog UK’s Management and Staff
The CEO of www.bodog.co.uk is Patrick Selin, who has an impressive track record in online gambling. He was the President and CEO of the world’s largest poker network Ongame, right up until the time he completed their sale to BWIN for a sum of €500 million in 2006. He then served as the President and CEO of GNUF (Betway) until signing on to become the Bodog Europe CEO in 2010. During his roll with Bodog he’s signed some the best talent from around the industry.
Early staff signings instrumental for developing the new Bodog website included Mike Bohan of jackpotjoy.com, and AJ Thompson from Expekt.com. Bohan, a long time CRM expert, had spent 4-years with jackpotjoy.com before taking his position with Bodog. AJ Thompson has been in the gambling industry since it all began, having developed the first software for Pinnacle Sports, before eventually becoming the long time Chief Technology Officer of Expekt.
On the Marketing Side of Bodog Europe – the signings have been nothing short of amazing. The first move saw Unibet’s head of online marketing Magnus Oldby recruited away to Bodog. Next they signed Sportingbet Affiliate manager James McMaster, Sky’s social media manager Markus Smet, player retention expert from PartyGaming Keith Putley, and Ladbrokes casino VIP program manager Abid Riaz. From outside the gambling industry they also hired Philip Macartney (formerly with Bebo) to act as their Global Social Media Director.
The best industry talent continued and still continues to find its way to Bodog. They grabbed several key staff members formerly with Betfair including CMR expert Ed Perridge, product development guru Arijit Ghosh, and database manager Sathish Seshadri. Three additional Sportingbet talents were signed to Bodog as well – technical product analyst Richard Ashington, business analyst Conor Hickey, and quality assurance manager Sergio Neves Barros. The also brought on Bryan Hurwitz as the company’s Mobile Product Manager – Bryan formerly worked for mobile gambling industry specialists Mfuse.
While it sure appears as Bodog’s strategy has been to hire only the best and most experienced members of the gambling industry. They have made several huge signings from outside the industry – none bigger than, Dee Dutta who was hired as their Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) in October 2011. Mr. Dutta was most recently the Head of Marketing for the Asia-Pacific region for Visa, and is best known for his 6-years as Vice President & Global Head of Marketing for Sony-Ericsson where landed key WTA tennis sponsorships.
As you can see www.bodog.co.uk has assembled an All Star Team that should help them in their quest to repeat the same success they experienced elsewhere – here in the UK market.
Also Keep in Mind – Bodog is UK licensed
Bodog could have easily stayed in Antigua and marketed their UK brand from there. This is because Antigua is a whitelisted jurisdiction in the UK which means their gambling licenses are recognized here, and companies licensed in Antigua have approval to advertise freely in the UK. This would have involved paying a lot less tax, as well as upfront licensing fees.
What you need to understand about Bodog – this is a company that spent well over a decade making player trust their number one priority. Yes, there have been wild publicity stunts and massive parties with hot babes, and Bodog loves to the attention – but this is all layered on top of the core foundation of Bodog which is player trust. With the large number of scams that have come from other Malta, Antigua and Gibraltar licensed operators – UK offices, UK license, and UK physical presence – is absolutely Bodog’s style to get off on the right footing in this market. We already established that Bodog has key exposure with English Premier League fans and followers. They also now operate multiple offices in London and have greatly expressed their plans to continue to move into in person betting as well.
Perhaps this is a bold prediction, but I honest expect in 3-5 years’ time, www.bodog.co.uk will become one the most wagered at websites in the UK. Right now you can claim £10 risk free wager and have the privilege of someday telling the story – you were on their first UK site clients.