Bovada has operated on the fringes of the US gaming market for quite some time without, seemingly, any consequences from state or federal authorities. All that may change however since Kentucky resident Billi Jo Woods launched a class action lawsuit against the illegal operator in an attempt to recover several thousand dollars she lost gambling on the site. If successful, Woods’ lawsuit could have devastating consequences for the best-known black market gambling site in the world.
Woods’ lawsuit relies on a Kentucky statute that allows citizens to recover gambling losses in certain situations. One of those situations, according to Woods, is when the gambling operator is operating illegally. With nary a license in any US State, and no plans to get one, Bovada certainly falls into that category. Though the law was written in the 19th Century, it hardly needs dusting off. Kentucky authorities used this same law to squeeze hundreds of millions of dollars from PokerStars and its owners in the wake of American online poker meltdown.
While filing suit against Bovada is relatively easy, its international makeup may make collecting on a successful outcome extremely difficult. Bovada is owned by the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group, which is based in Kahnawake Mohawk Territory near Montreal, Canada, while the company’s servers are located in Costa Rica. And just to make things interesting, online gambling bad boy Calvin Ayre is named as “owner and chief operator of Bodog”, though his relationship with the company is not clear.
No matter the outcome, this lawsuit is certain to be headache for Bodog and, if successful, it could be catastrophic.