This week’s column is all about Bodog and LOCOG.
First, Bodog.
Was anyone betting the over/under on when the United States government would prosecute Calvin Ayre, who founded the sports gambling and poker website in Vancouver?
The US Department of Justice finally acted last week, indicting Ayre, chartered accountant and NovaGold Resources director James Philip, controller David Ferguson and media buyer Derrick Maloney. They could face 20 years in jail if convicted of conspiracy to launder money and five years for operating an illegal gambling company.
The charges come less than a year since the April 15, 2011, “Black Friday” when PokerStars’, Absolute Poker’s and Full Tilt’s domains were nabbed and executives charged with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling. The move to shut down foreign websites that target American gamblers is a legacy of former president George W. Bush’s 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Act.
Is it driven by morals, a fear of addiction and crime or is this the forced evolution of an industry that, if regulated, could provide jobs and much-needed tax revenue to the cash-strapped federal and state governments?
Insider trading of Bicer Medical earned Ayre a 20-year BC Securities Commission ban in 1996. He started Bodog in Vancouver and created subsidiaries like the Riptown Media marketing arm and Triple Crown Customer Service. Servers were in Costa Rica, then Antigua and now on the Kahnawake Mohawk Indian reserve near Montreal. Despite the Criminal Code, Ottawa has shown no appetite to risk another Oka-style standoff with Kahnawake, who consider themselves sovereign.
Last fall, Bodog’s North American sites were rebranded as Bovada. Over the years, Ayre extended the brand with divisions promoting mixed martial arts, recording artists and even coffee. He remade his image in the style of Richard Branson and Donald Trump, as a globetrotting playboy. Meanwhile, Bodog’s U.K. division got licensed by the UK Gambling Commission, and Bodog is the jersey sponsor for Scotland’s Ayr United and England’s West Bromwich Albion soccer teams.
Vancouver has long been a major player in the online sports gambling world. Starnet was among the pioneers, until it was sensationally busted on August 20, 1999, by police investigating the Hells Angels connections of early investors. The 18-month Project Enigma probe led to Starnet’s August 2001 $100,000 fine and forfeit of a US$3.92 million Vancouver bank account.
LOCOG lowdown
Now for the lowdown on LOCOG’s rising sustainability stock.
The London Organizing Committee for the 2012 Olympic Games leapfrogged VANOC February 24 with the groundbreaking disclosure of the names and places where souvenir toys, books, pins, collectibles and memorabilia are made. The list from 11 licensees represents 70% of products and was released after an agreement with the Play Fair labour campaign.
There are 28 Chinese factories listed, including Yancheng Rainbow Arts and Gifts, which makes the Mandeville and Wenlock dolls for Golden Bear Toys. Yancheng workers make about $0.40 an hour and routinely work 11-hour days, according to Hong Kong’s Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour. Yancheng was a supplier of Miga, Quatchi and Sumi dolls for VANOC licensee Northern Gifts of Burnaby.
During her tenure with VANOC, sustainability officer Ann Duffy refused to name factories, claiming confidentiality clauses. She was always fond of telling reporters that VANOC was “only here for a short time.”
“It is great that LOCOG is doing that,” said Dennis Kim, the former VANOC licensing and merchandising director who is now Aritzia’s senior digital media director. “When we started it was almost just an idea. It was something where we were going to take the Olympics and even sports licensed apparel into a new realm altogether, which was to have sustainability, social compliance, code of conduct, that had never been done before.”
The toothpaste is out of the tube. Big international events and sports brands will be measured next to LOCOG, which understands sustainability must be transparent for it to be credible.
Great Scott
Scott Ackles organized the 2005 and 2011 Grey Cups and now he is B.C.’s most powerful amateur sports executive. On March 1, Ackles was named chief executive officer of the BC Sport Agency.
BCSA takes over some functions of the former 2010 Legacies Now and some from Sport BC, whose CEO of 18 months, Tim Gayda, has left to open a consultancy. Gayda’s job will not be filled. •
