Does the recent action against Bodog and Calvin Ayre have any teeth?

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Calvin Ayre has been indicted, but if you haven’t you can find the story at www.CalvinAyre.com.

The Us Attorney’s office in Maryland must have won the office pool for the jurisdiction that can indict Calvin Ayre, considering the Billionaire Internet sports-betting mogul has been thumbing his nose at the US government for over a decade now. Indictment and domain-seizure aside; do these charges have any chance of sticking, or is this simply another move by the US government for a cash-grab from an online gaming site?

There are quite a few things to consider when looking at this latest action:

#1 - this is the same US Attorney who was responsible for the Blue Monday crackdown that went after the Yatahay Poker Network. It should be noted that unlike US Attorney Preet Bahrara in Manhattan -who was responsible for the investigation that led to Black Friday– the Blue Monday charges did not force Yatahay to leave the US market, and we have heard nary a whisper about it since. In fact, Yatahay openly accepts US players.

#2 - there wasn’t a money seizure. This is the first crackdown of this sort that wasn’t accompanied with a sizable monetary seizure, which seems to imply that there is a lack of solid evidence in regards to Bodog using shell companies and phony payment processors.

#3 - The Bodog.com domain has been offline for quite some time, with the site moving their site to the friendlier .eu domain -and US players shifted to the newly minted Bovada.lv. Obviously the creation of the Bovada.lv site separates Bodog’s interests from the US market; providing a buffer of sorts between the Bodog brand should the US government decide to take action -which they did.

#4 - Ayre has been “retired” from Bodog for a number of years, so unless the US government can prove he still has a major role in the day-to-day operations of the company any accusations against him during his “retirement” have little chance of sticking. I was very surprised that the indictment didn’t make mention of specific time periods, instead going right up to the present -which to me seems like the US government isn’t differentiating between the time when Ayre was in charge and when he had handed over the reins.

#5 - Ayre seems to be going about with his life as if nothing happened, and the indictment is nothing more than a laughable inconvenience based on the articles that have appeared on CalvinAyre.com so far.

Ayre has constantly mocked the US government and their efforts to strong-arm online gaming sites, so this could very well be payback against Ayre. But it also seems unnecessary considering he never travels to the US and keeps all of his assets out of the States (Ayre is Canadian). So do they really have a case? Or is this just another attempt to startle the online gaming market in the US, sending a message to the sites and the players that more action is yet to come?