Felony Charges Dropped Against Calvin Ayre

Calvin Ayre, the billionaire founder of Bodog, pleaded guilty to a minor misdemeanor on Friday. That plea ended a five-year case in which Bodog, Ayre and three others were indicted on illegal gambling and money laundering. Ayre will also get back the famed Bodog.com domain name in exchange for a $100,000 payment. There are no restrictions on what can be done with the Bodog domain name. so don’t be surprised to see it put to use once again in the near future.

The deal is seen as a major victory for Ayre, who faced up to 25 years in prison. He admitted to being an accessory after the fact related to the transmission of gambling information, prohibited by the federal Wire Act. Ayre took the deal from his Canadian home. He never entered the United States to answer the charges. While he agreed to surrender nearly $67 million that was seized by the government, he can afford it. The money was taken from payment processors to pay winning bettors. He personally made sure those due funds received them and no bettor was left short-handed.

He was fined $5000,000 and give one-year probation as part of the agreement. But it’s unsupervised probation. meaning he just needs to stay out of legal trouble.

“Mr. Ayre is pleased with the outcome of this case,” his attorney said in a statement. “He is even more pleased that this five-year ordeal is finally over for him and for the others who were charged. He looks forward to moving forward with his life.”

All of the charges against the other individuals were dropped a while ago.

Ayre told his press people that nothing has really changed after making the deal. He will continue to do the things he enjoys doing, which includes his gaming interests, charitable work in Antigua and a tech investor.