Bodog Founder Calvin Ayre APCW Interviews

Billionaire Bodog founder Calvin Ayre has said in an interview that the 2006 sale of his company to the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group led him to later realize the effectiveness of Bodog as a brand name in its own right.

Speaking during an exclusive interview with Perspectives Weekly's JTodd that went online this week, Ayre said that he unintentionally retained the right to the Bodog brand and technology after making the sale, and realized later while in Antigua that the model was effective in other jurisdictions.

He said the subsequent branding deals with Bodog Europe and Bodog Asia, and another branding deal for a global poker network due to announced in September, were an example of a global branding entity licensing brands that all positively reinforce each other. He also hinted that Latin America would be the brand's next target region.

Asked by JTodd about that 2005 Forbes interview in which the then rising star was quoted as saying "Catch me if you can," Ayre denied actually saying those exact words but said it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

"Actually I said pretty much the exact opposite. At that time my position was that we were a mainstream entertainment company who happened to be in online gaming...I think they just did that to make the article more attractive," he said, adding that it might have given him some "street cred."

Originally founded in Canada in 1994 as an online gaming company, the now Antigua-based Bodog licensing group licenses the brand to the Mohawk group, Bodog Europe and to an Asian brand, the latter through an agreement with the Philippines-based Haydock Sports.