Home / Poker News November 2013 / Calvin Ayre’s Legal Problems Re-surface
Calvin Ayre’s Legal Problems Re-surface
Posted by: James Carter. - Fri, 2013-11-22 06:15
The flamboyant owner of Bodog was blacklisted by US authorities years ago, yet for a while there he continued to defy everyone, offering real money online poker to Americans as well as to other people from world over. All that came to an end with the launch of
Bovada, and the withdrawal of the Bodog brand not only from the United States, but from Europe as well. Calvin Ayre was probably hoping the moves would get him off the legal hook once and for all, and by moving to Asia, he would be able to re-build his
online poker/online gambling empire. While he did manage to get some of that re-building started, he didn’t manage to escape the clutches of law enforcement.
According to an unverified and often conflicting series of reports, the Bodog Asia offices in the Philippines were raided yesterday by the local police. No one really seems to know what the motives behind the raid were. One source says the raid was a politically motivated one, ordered by Chavit Singson, the local “Gangster Governor”, and that the allegations that led to the raid included Bodog’s “street-level” gambling offering. Bodog do not offer any sort of online gambling and poker services in the Philippines.
According to CalvinAyre.com though, the interests behind the raid were not those of Chavit Singson, but rather those of Jan Robert Gustafsson, a Swedish national and a former employee of Bodog, who has been accused of theft and fraud, and who is currently under indictment as well. According to the same source, new charges had just been leveled at Gustafsson right before the raid.
According to a third source though, Ayre, himself under indictment in the US, has set up a bunch of dummy corporations in the Philippines to aid with his illegal gambling and money laundering practices.
Play at Bovada and take advantage of the US traffic, as well as of the outstanding promotions currently on offer at the site.
