Calvin Ayre / Cole Turner
The theft allegations by Mayan Sports escalated in after years after it was discovered that the Bodog founder and CEO, then using the alias Cole Turner, was really Calvin Ayre. This was controversial since in the moment, the industry wasn’t yet conscious that he had been supporting El Moro Finance Ltd. (BVI). The actual story came out later that he’d raised funds for Cyberoad as a”consultant”, it collapsed, and a company he controlled acquired all the assets, at which time he began using an alias (Cole Turner).
This wasn’t the first questionable company dealing involving Calvin Ayre.
Calvin AyreThe self-told narrative about his past is that he was born to Canadian grain and pig farmers in 1961. After college and several failed business ventures, he sold everything he owned to raise $10,000 in 1994 to start a software firm that would become Bodog. What is frequently omitted from the narrative is that his dad was convicted in 1987 for smuggling 750 lbs of marijuana. While Calvin was not charged or arrested, he had been known by the judge for a co-conspirator that”definitely played a part” In a separate run in with the law, in 1991 that he had been civilly charged with insider trading, but settled for a $10,000 fine and was banned from the Vancouver Stock Exchange before 2016.
When it was discovered that Cole Turner was actually Calvin Ayre (the owner of Bodog and eSportz), this made Mayan Sports and lots of Cyberoad investors angry. It is reasonable to say that Calvin Ayre had no shortage of enemies in his early career. However, looking ahead to today, Bodog has always been an honest and reputable gambling site which has paid all winners. Mayan, on the other hand, proved to be a rogue gambling site (D+ rated currently). It is difficult without all the facts to implicate Calvin Ayre of much, but based on track records running a gambling site, Calvin Ayre’s reputation is spotless from the perspective of Bodog account holders along with their payments.
The Big Book Closing
To get back on track with the deadline of Bovada history, as mentioned, the business that started Bodog, eSportz was powering The Large Book and sharing an office. Each firm used the same payment and accounting company as well. The narrative of their falling out with Bodog entails a girl named Viktoria Zazoulina (called Vika) who’d immigrated from the Ukraine to Vancouver, BC, Canada in early 1990’s.
Vika chose a position with Kazootek Technologies Ltd. at their beginning (strongly believed to have been a different Calvin Ayre firm ) that did all the financial accounting for its ebanx payment system. Vika started as a professional accountant and had such a great (sensed ) work ethic her supervisors increased her cover and coated her education involving a CGA designation (Canada’s term for CPA). She finally reached the cap of the business and hired her buddy Tatiana Kostiouk (known as Tanya).
In time, both Vika and Tanya became signing officers in a lot of the company’s Kazootek Technologies Ltd. (meaning they had access to all bank accounts). By this moment, Vika was a true immigration success story earning over $100,000 per year. However life shifted. This was the date on which Vika and Tanya signed the first of many checks used to embezzle large sums of cash from customers, most of which believed them close friends. As they stole and got away with it for years, their confidence rose. They registered a new worker, Greg Tanner, to help start a competing company, which used technology stolen from Kazootek and fund money from their clients.
According to an article (no longer online) that we suspect was composed by Calvin Ayre, they soon dragged The Big Book into a plan to develop into a customer and started conspiring how to sneak the source code out of eSportz. With an investigation already under way to the odd behaviour seen from Vika lately, alarm bells went off when she gave her inaugural notice in mid-2003. Not allowing her to ruin evidence for the subsequent two weeks, she was immediately escorted from the building, and her office and computers were locked for forensic audit. The wake was the filling of a suit, and Bodog finish its partnership with The Big Book. From this day forward, Bodog.com was the only brand powered with the eSportz software.