Bovada has been around for almost 20 years, and has an excellent reputation for paying people. They're not perfect, and I've had issues with them at times, but they don't just randomly screw people.

They have been clamping down HARD in recent years against sports multiaccounters (such as prop bettors who get their limits reduced, and then use other accounts to get around it), as well as bonus whores who repeatedly deposit just to get and run bonuses, and but otherwise don't play.

I actually had my bonuses permanently killed by Bovada about 2-3 years ago for a stupid reason. I had a lot of money on the site at the time (like $45k), and they had a bitcoin promotion where you could get 100% deposit bonus for doing a bitcoin deposit. So I did that (it was clearable via poker), which basically was the equivalent to rakeback for me. Knowing they might bitch about this, I called up beforehand and asked if this was okay (to deposit when I already had 45k on the site), and the rep said yes.

Well, the rep was wrong. My account was locked.

I spoke to some obnoxious Filipino dude in security, who scolded me for "abusing bonuses", and kept demanding to know why I would deposit when I already had $45k on there. I told him the truth -- that I was offered a bonus, that I would earn it through poker play, and that their own rep said it was fine to do.

The guy told me he would pull the call and listen. He called me back a few hours later and conceded that the rep did give me permission.

"I'll unlock your account now, but I am disabling your bonuses on Bovada forever," he said.

I tried to argue, and he wouldn't budge.