Bodog Announces Anonymous Poker Series

Bodog has announced its upcoming “Anonymous Poker Series,” a year-long, Asia-centric series of live and online events running throughout 2013, culminating in a $100k Grand Final in Manila, Philippines, in January 2014.

The series’ concept playfully answers the question of a how a site should run an online series when it is already committed to a “recreational player model“ that includes player anonymity, removing the need for many of the expected fixings—such as leaderboards—associated with most series.

Bodog instead gets playful with the concept, using it as a tool to upsell Bodog’s brand positioning and anonymous-player model to its Asian markets and players.

Bodog’s Anonymous Poker Series will include both online and live qualifying events beginning in January of 2013, running all the way to the Manila finale. Bodog may also extend invitations to select players to participate in Manila, citing the event as possibly including “specially invited ‘poker heroes’ from 2013.”

According to Jonas Odman, Managing Director of the Bodog Poker Network:

This series will help highlight exactly how and why we feel our network is the best and safest place for both recreational poker players and operators alike. Operators who service sports bettors and casino players do not want their customers leaking money to non-depositing poker pros who are using sophisticated software in order to win. Our anonymous tables take this unfairness out of the equation, creating a much better experience for the leisure player.

This model has been specifically designed to appeal to the Asian market where the ‘trust-factor’ is the single most important reason for choosing one operator over another. In the Asian market we believe our product – in the same way Live Dealer casinos are viewed above RNG operators – will be the preferred option in poker.

The anonymous-player concept used on Bodog (and also on US-facing Bovada) has been controversial among players, who have cited both pluses and minuses with the move.

While the disarming of sophisticated third-party software packages is a notable plus, the immediate trade off remains the lack of an ability by players to track possible ongoing collusion between others at the tables.

Further details on Bodog’s Anonymous Player Series will be released in early 2013.

The focus on Asian markets follows Bodog’s recent shift in its target audience which began with the announcement earlier this year that the Bodog Network was sold to Bodog88.

Soon after, it was learned that the Bodog brand operating as Bodog.co.uk would be pulled out of 20 countries across Europe and the Middle East. In October the online poker room at Bodog.co.uk was closed completely.