Bodog Gets Targeted By Feds

I know I'm a little late in the forum with this, but I have to update my blog...

According to a Forbes article published yesterday, the feds have recently cracked down big-time on Bodog.

The story outlines how the US Attorney's Office in Baltimore has seized $24 million from different American bank accounts linked to Bodog's payment systems.

Holy crap!

This is not the kind of publicity that Bodog wants in the weeks leading up to football season.

The story goes into detail about at least 10 American companies that Bodog or Calvin Ayre either directly or indirectly controlled, and how those companies and bank accounts all got shut down.

This is devastating to Bodog's payment systems, as it seems the feds have finally unraveled the tangled web of companies and bank accounts that Bodog wove over the years to obfuscate their financial dealings.

This is a system that took years to create, and it doesn't get recreated easily.

This situation marks yet another major hit Bodog has suffered since Calvin Ayre's unwise flaunting of his empire in that now-infamous Forbes article titled, Catch Me if You Can, back in 2006.

Since that crest, Bodog has been hit by many expe... [More]

Where's my damn money?

Yes, I know it has taken me a while to jump into this fray.

I really have no excuse other than:

a) I have been taking some vacation.
b) I honestly hoped that this would take care of itself before I had to get involved.
c) I am a notorious procrastinator.
d) This post took a whole lot longer to write than I thought it would.

I know those are pretty shitty excuses, but that's the best I can give you.

Also, I should mention that during this post I am not going to bother trying to defend some of the despicable customer service stories that I have read on the forum recently. To that end, we are working diligently on our end to try to mitigate some of the complaints, but as you will see it is usually not a matter of a casino intentionally trying to screw over their customers, rather it is a mostly unavoidable situation that they are scrambling to deal with - and they might not have an immediately "acceptable" solution that pleases everybody.

Anyway, the point of this post is really to give people a short bit of background on how payment systems work online, how they can get messed up, where the government interference hurts, and hopefully a few ideas on how to mitigate their exposure.

I'm not going to delve too deeply into the methods that a lot of companies use - mainly because I don't know a lot of it - but I will try to give you all a good overview of the situation that your average online gambling company has to deal with on a... [More]

Antigua moves deadline to August 1

According to the Antigua Sun, Antigua has once again re-set its deadline for the conclusion of their negotiations for a settlement to their gaming dispute. The latest deadline is Agust 1.

The idea that this situation could have its third deadline in only a month had me completely flummoxed... so much that I began to wonder if perhaps it was me who was confused about the meaning of the word "deadline".

In search of the truth, I headed over to Dictionary.com, where I looked up the meaning of "deadline".

Here is a couple of offered definitions from the response:

1) the time by which something must be finished or submitted; the latest time for finishing something: a five o'clock deadline.
- Well, that kind of sounds like what I thought.

2) a line or limit that must not be passed.
- Yeah, same thing.

3) A boundary line in a prison that prisoners can cross only at the risk of being shot.
- That's a bit excessive in this context.

3) the point in time at which something must be completed.<... [More]

CNBC covers online gambling payments

Last week, CNBC's SportsBiz correspondent, Darren Rovell, blogged about the problems online gamblers are having collecting their online winnings.

The short piece covered Jim McDermott's proposed legislation to regulate online gambling, as well as rumors that people were not getting paid.

At the end of the post, he requested some reader feedback.

Well, this week he followed up with some reader feedback, as well as an interview with Alwyn Morris, from Morris Mohawk, who explained why it is taking Bodog users up to 40 days to get paid.

Morris does a nice job of explaining the problems - which I will get into myself in a forthcoming post - but I'm not sure if anybody can truly be pleased with the situation.

Anyway, I'm just glad that Rovell and CNBC are not afraid to talk about an issue that undoubtedly affects a lot of their viewers, but other mainstream media outlets still shy away from.

Nice work, CNBC!

NJ Senator: Lift the Ban on Sports Betting

Yesterday, NJ Senator Raymond Lesniak gave a speech to the National Conference of State Legislators, and today he posted his speech on his blog on the NJ.com website.

And what a speech!

Senator Lesniak skillfully laid to waste most of the traditional arguments against legalizing sports betting, and also outlined a number of benefits.

It's truly good to see that there are at least a few forward thinking politicians out there. Hopefully this gentleman gets noticed.

Califirnia is moving closer to legal poker

Shari Geller at Pokernews.com has posted a nice article today about the poker bill moving through the California legislative system.

Geller outlines how the bill, called the California Gambling Control/Intrastate Online Poker Legalization Act, or AB 2026, has been morphing as it moves through the process.

Originally planned as a lever to force a study of the viability of intrastate online poker in California, the bill now commissions the California Bureau of Gambling Control to create a slate of regulations for the establishment of intrastate online poker by July 1, 2009.

Furthermore, this bill has already passed a vote in the Senate Governmental Organization Committee by a 6-1 margin.

So even if the bill never officially becomes a law, this is still a real and viable attempt to legalize poker in California.

With an estimated 2 million poker players within the state, California has more than enough players to support several intrastate online poker rooms.

In case you were wondering why Party Poker is allegedly willing to pay up to a billion dollars in a settlement with the US government to clear up their name, let this story be Exhibit A.[More]

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Fast Company nails Calvin Ayre

Wow. If Bodog thought the Forbes article a few years back was bad PR, they can't be pleased with what Fast Company is publishing this month.

In a 10-page feature, Josh Dean does everything he can to tarnish the image Ayre has of being a bad boy billionaire playboy.

For those unaware, A few years ago, Forbes magazine put Ayre on the cover of it's billionaires issue, with the title "Catch Me If You Can". That article marked the moment that the go-go phase of online gambling officially jumped the shark.

At the time Bodog, and online gambling, was at its peak. The article depicted Ayre as a sharp criminal who was getting rich while breaking the law - which was kind of exactly how Ayre wanted to be viewed at the time.

That article also firmly placed Bodog - and online gambling - firmly in the crosshairs of the American authorities who don't like having their noses rubbed in that kind of thing.

Fast-forward to the present. The UIGEA has decimated the industry, which is only now beginning to recover.

This latest article depicts Ayre in a much different light.

Rather than coming off as a marketing genius, he instead comes off kind of pathetic - a man trying to keep the party alive, but nobody else is interested. Even... [More]

USA to EU... GFY!

I've been away from the computer for the most of the last few weeks, so I've neglected to report on a couple of interesting stories that have come around.

Since it's mostly a slow news day, I'll recap something that happened last week, and that is America's reply to the EU's questionnaire regarding America's refusal to allow foreign operators into the American online gambling market.

Well as the Financial Times reports, a little over a week ago America finally replied, sort of.

While the EU sent off questionaires to various American agencies and government departments, America's Susan Schwab responded with a single short and rather terse letter saying there was "no basis for any allegation of discriminatory enforcement of US gambling laws".

In short, they told the EU to please f**k off.

Which is all kind of strange, since the WTO has already ruled that America HAS acted in a discriminatory manner. America might not agree with that ruling, but to pretend that ruling never occurred is kinda insulting. And to say that there is no basis for any allegation even after the matter has been proven and ruled upon in court is just ridiculous and is certainly no way to conduct business.

We'll see what happens when the EU sends a delegation to America this month to discuss the situation.

I can only ima... [More]

Canada wants sportsbooks... everywhere

The Toronto Star is rapidly becoming my favorite Canadian news source.

Today, the Star published a couple of complimentary stories, both of which hammer out the idea that the casino industry in Ontario is faltering along with the American economy, and it needs the boost of interest that would come from having actual sportsbooks on the premises.

All I can say is, "Bravo, Toronto Star! You nailed it."

I'll start with the less-direct story by business reporter Tony Wong, which outlines the struggles of the casinos in Windsor and Niagara Falls, both of which have traditionally counted heavily on Americans crossing the border to spend a day gambling. From the stats in the article, it looks like cross-border traffic is down about two-thirds since 2001.

On its own, this is an excellent business article. It lays out the facts, and let's the reader make their opinion.

But what makes it even better is the companion piece, titled Casinos eye sports betting, written by Robert Benzie and Richard Brennan. This story drops the bomb.

This story outlines how Ontario and the Canadian federal government are actively considering the possibility of changing the laws in Canada to pave the way for enhanced sports gambling.

First, a little bac... [More]

Another problem for banks

I read an interesting story published yesterday in the Scotsman.

It outlines the latest problem involving kids, credit cards, and the Internet. It also gives a perfect illustration of how it is simply impossible to please everybody.

Here is the situation... Like most bank, Lloyds TSB used to offer regular bank cards to kids (ie. younger than 15), but restricted their use to bank machines or bank branches.

However, as everyone knows, this restriction essentially makes the cards useless in most situations, or at least more inconvenient than useful. And so people complained.

So Lloyds changed their policy and started issuing cards that allowed kids to use the cards through Interac and online.

Uh-oh! That opened the door for kids to buy adult material online, like porn and Viagra. So people are complaining.

Where do I stand on this?

Well, I usually tend to err on the side of personal responsibility, and I see no reason to change my pattern here.

As far as I can tell, this issue reveals three essential truths:

1) Increased convenience will always result in decreased regulation or security. And vice-versa.

2) Bad parents will always blame somebody else when their kids do bad things.

3) Politicians will always cater to the bad parents of the world.

From my standpoint, the big... [More]