Bovada vs ESPN BET looks, on paper, like a straightforward offshore- versus-onshore matchup. It isn’t quite that simple, because one of these two names doesn’t answer to anything anymore — and it’s not the one you’d guess. ESPN BET stopped existing as a brand on December 1, 2025. Bovada is still very much Bovada. The real comparison is about two different kinds of disappearing act, and what each one means for a reader’s money.
Is Bovada Legal? Is ESPN BET Still a Thing?
Bovada has never held a US state license. It ran for years on a Curaçao license (8048/JAZ) that has since lapsed; the site now cites the Union of the Comoros instead, a jurisdiction whose licensing carries little practical weight. Twenty US jurisdictions — Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, and Washington DC — now refuse it outright, a list that has grown every few months since 2024.
ESPN BET, meanwhile, was a fully licensed PENN Entertainment sportsbook from November 2023 until PENN and ESPN mutually ended their roughly $1.5–2 billion trademark deal early. On December 1, 2025, PENN stopped using the ESPN name and relaunched the exact same licensed operator as theScore Bet. Nothing about that was a legal problem — it was a marketing contract ending on schedule for underwhelming market share, not a regulator stepping in.
Bovada vs ESPN BET (now theScore Bet), side by side
| Bovada | ESPN BET → theScore Bet | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2011 (Bodog lineage) | 2023, renamed 2025 |
| Current US license | None — lapsed Curaçao, cites Comoros | Same PENN Entertainment state licenses throughout |
| Why the name changed | It hasn’t — still “Bovada” | ESPN trademark deal ended early, Dec 1, 2025 |
| Blocked / inactive states | 20 jurisdictions, expanding | ~20-state footprint, unchanged by the rename |
| Product | Sportsbook, casino, poker, racebook | Sportsbook only, no casino |
| Can you sign up under this name today? | Yes, where not blocked | No — sign up under theScore Bet instead |
What Happens If Each One Leaves Your State
These look similar from a distance — a brand a reader used to see stops being usable — but the mechanics underneath are opposite. When a state adds Bovada to its blocked list, that’s the operator choosing, unforced by any court order in most cases, to stop taking new registrations there; existing balances have historically still been paid out, but nothing requires that. When ESPN BET’s name ended, every account, balance, and pending wager moved automatically to theScore Bet under the same state gaming licenses — because those licenses required an orderly transition, not because PENN felt like being generous.
The one-line version: Bovada could lose access to your state at any time with no regulator forcing a clean handoff. ESPN BET already went through its transition, and a state license made sure nothing broke.
Is Bovada Legit? Is theScore Bet Legit?
Both have real, verifiable track records — they just rest on different foundations. Bovada’s legitimacy is purely reputational: fifteen years of forum-documented payouts with no regulator behind any of it. theScore Bet’s legitimacy is structural: it is PENN Entertainment, a publicly traded operator, under the identical state licenses ESPN BET held. A reader asking “is Bovada legit” is really asking whether an operator with no license still keeps its word; a reader asking “is ESPN BET legit” is asking about a marketing rename that a state regulator has already vetted.
Who Should Actually Read This Comparison
Two groups land here. The first typed “is ESPN BET still around” and needs to know their account is fine under theScore Bet — it is. The second is deciding between an offshore book and a licensed one in a state where both are technically reachable, and for that reader the honest framing isn’t “which is better,” it’s “which one has a regulator standing behind it” — and only one of these two does. Betting is entertainment spending on either app, never income. 21+ where legal; call 1-800-GAMBLER for help.