IRS Goes After Bodog

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has filed court documents describing how Bodog used a string of companies in Malta to circumvent U.S. regulations so it could pay out customers residing in the States, according to the Malta Independent.

Those companies included Stratham Finance, of which Ayre is a director and sole shareholder, and a string of other Malta-based companies of which either founder, Calvin Ayre, or his right-hand man, James Philip, a former partner at Morgan & Co. chartered accountants in Vancouver, are directors and shareholders, the paper reports. 

The newspaper said that, according to the IRS documents, an unnamed "cooperating individual" -- a highly placed person at MPS Processing Ltd. located in the U.K. -- told IRS investigators that his firm received funds from Stratham Finance, then transferred them to an American money processing company. That company would then distribute the money by cheque or electronic payment to winners, with no indication the money was the proceeds of Internet gambling.

The IRS has already seized $24 million of Bodog's funds from U.S. payment processors and is pressing for more.

Ayre, who appeared on the 2006 Forbes Billionaire issue cover, is currently in hiding.

Bodog was yanked from the Gambling911.com website late this past summer following the lead of Covers.com and others due to the unprecedented bad PR amassed resulting from the cash seizures and inability to pay customers and vendors in a timely fashion.

Bodog has lost nearly 40 percent of its market share over the past year.

Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher