End of an era – Bodog to exit USA

When Bodog first started taking bets online Kurt Cobain was still making music, Ayrton Senna was still dominating Formula 1 and George Foreman was the heavy weight champion of the world.

When Bodog launched it’s online casino Lance Armstrong was still wondering if he could ever win a Tour de France with just the one testicle, Macau was still owned by the Portuguese, Europe was being introduced to the Euro and you were probably still on a dial-up Internet connection.

Those years…1994 and 1999.

Yep, the Bodog brand is one of the few that can lay claim to being just about as old as the online gambling industry itself.

And for all of those years, Bodog has been taking bets from US players…defiantly remaining one of the only large operators to do so after UIGEA was enacted in 2006.  But this will all change December 31, with the news yesterday that they will be withdrawing from the US player market at the end of this year.

From January 1 2012, U.S. residents won’t be able to access Bodog.eu or any other Bodog-branded websites.

A company statement explained the decision as follows:

“Following recent news that Bodog UK has been granted a gambling license by the U.K. Gambling Commission…in order to ensure the brand’s expansion is not affected by negative perceptions, both in the U.K. and elsewhere in emerging markets such as Asia, where Bodog88 is already successful, a decision has been made to withdraw the Bodog brand from the US market at the end of 2011.”

And what of the Bodog girls who became an integral part of the company’s brand and it’s Play Hard mantra back in 2002?

Well, if the promo images posted by the Bodog88 casino rep in our forum are anything to go by…they’ll continue to be an important part of the promotional strategy outside the US…