Calvin Ayre - Bodog
The US authorities have seized Calvin Ayres legendary brand Bodog.com in another one of those dramatic legal grabbing that first started with ‘Black Friday’ last May.
In a move which will be familiar to those US citizens and others who had their accounts frozen, a notice was posted online by the Homeland Security announcing that they have taken over Bodog.com.
Bodog seized by Homeland Security
In a move which at first looked like a security problem, Homeland Security took over the website on Tuesday (28/02/2012) and basically shut the website down.
However, Calvin Ayre has got a plan B for a long time, and, those US citizens who want to deposit money online to play poker with Bodog have had alternative methods since December 2011.
Bovada.lv has been accepting online players from the US and is basically Bodog.com. Although I have not been on the site to play, it has not been featured negatively and apart from the almost heavy browser usage seems to be OK.
All this legal stuff will not phase Calvin Ayre who has been sailing close to the wind with the US authorities for years. His father apparently was a major marijuana smuggler, and, got done. There has always been rumours that his father took a hit for his son, but that has never been confirmed and has always been denied.
It has been said by those who support Calvin Ayre and those who support online poker in general that all of these legal hassles is due to the fact that the US government will make online poker legal, but, will make sure that the big casinos will get the cream of the deals.
It is hard not to see some validity in this argument since there is no way that the US government position makes any sense in that you cannot play poker online, if, you are a US citizen. It does take an incorrigible character such as Calvin Ayre to smoke out those who want to hold back on online poker until they have their friends in place to take advantage of the legislation.
The bigger picture of it being silly for a nation that is supposed to be the defender of capitalism, the originator of poker and the developer of the Internet for commercial use, holds back on people depositing money to play online poker! Poker is the purest form of capitalism and the government needs revenue after the bankers betted on red and it went black on Lehmans Day 2008.
So what better way to raise revenue than to tax a the dollars generated by online poker? This is a complete no brainer and the sooner that those who make the decision sort this out the better. I know we at PokerKnave have been banging on about legalising online poker for the US, but it seems that although those in power know it does make sense it is finding the best way of doing it! Why not let the market decide?