Ayre Cancels Next Months Bodog Conference in Las Vegas
David Carruthers' arrest seems to have spooked online gaming executives. A major gaming conference, scheduled for next week in Las Vegas, has been cancelled. The Bodog.com Marketing Conference typically attracts gaming professionals from all over the world but as soon as word of Carruthers arrest spread, attendees began canceling.
"No senior executive from a gaming company was going to come after what happened," said Calvin Ayre, founder and chief executive officer for Bodog.com.
"Nobody in the industry right now wants to come into the United States," Ayre said. "We're talking business people here. The people who run the online gaming industry are business people. They're not criminals. Nobody wants to be the test case for a prosecutor trying to make a name for themselves."
The conference will likely be held in the UK, Canada, the Bahamas, or Costa Rica in the next few months. Ayre said that this was likely the last year that it would have been held in the U.S. anyway because America is so unfriendly to the gaming industry.
But BetOnSports is not a typical online gaming company. They deal in sports betting, which is clearly outlawed by the Federal Wire Act of 1961, and they once operated in the United States. Most Bodog attendees are in the card gaming business and operate overseas, which makes them a bit more untouchable by the U.S. government. But they're not willing to gamble with the prospect of prosecution.
"From my read of the indictment, it sounds like this is an isolated situation," said Bruce Sabot, director of sales for Casino City, an online gambling information Web site, of the arrest. "It deals specifically with past history of the founders. The indictment talks about past practices that date back to 1992 of their illegal gambling activities that started in New York, moved to Florida and then offshore."
July 20, 2006
Posted By Susan Torres
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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