I just got off the phone with Bovada and they informed me that it usually takes seconds for sending bitcoin from coinbase to the electrum wallet... it's been well over 20 minutes and the funds still say unconfirmed..
Is this unusual?
no it's normal. you really should have learned how bitcoin works before using it. transactions take an average of 10 minutes for a single confirmation. i don't know what threshold of confirmations electrum deems fit but generally speaking 6 confirmations (60 minutes on average) is considered sufficient for a transaction to be deemed irreversible.