Bodog Philippines customer service office raided, supposedly as a result of an ongoing civil war within the company

What a mess.

Bodog has been one of the most stable poker/sportsbook brands amid the turmoil that has plagued the online gaming industry for the past 10 years.

They seemed to beat pretty much everything. They got their bodog.com domain seized by some US state (I think it was Kansas) several years back, and not only were they largely unaffected, but they eventually got it back.

They survived the indictment of founder Calvin Ayre, Black Friday, the second round of busts later in 2011, and have continued to be the most reliable and trusted US-facing room. This is all despite offering sportsbetting -- something considered a huge no-no by the Department of Justice.

Calvin Ayre even maintained a cheeky blog/website, calvinayre.com, where he and a team of snarky writers bring the masses poker news and commentary, full of colorful editorializing and over-the-top photoshops.

Now, while still stable for the moment, Bodog is starting to come apart -- under its own weight.

It all started, strangely enough, with a $700 bike.

According to calvinayre.com, a Bodog Asia employee in Manila failed to return to work after what was supposed to be a 5-day vacation. He did not return the company-provided motorbike, so it was reported stolen.

It was later discovered that the employee was actually instructed by his bosses not to return the bike, but instead to quietly run various errands for them, in return for around $5000. This unraveled into a larger conspiracy, involving Bodog Asia Director Jan Robert Gustafsson, Bodog Europe CEO Patrick Selin, and several others.

Here is an October 14th column, trashing various people involved: http://calvinayre.com/2013/10/14/bus...ave-in-manila/

On November 7, calvinayre.com happily reported that charges were filed against Gustafsson and others, and provided more details. http://calvinayre.com/2013/11/07/bus...cy-to-defraud/

Bodog Asia employee Sylvia de Guzman was accused of trying to loot a company bank account, and subsequently threatening violence against the bank tellers who wouldn't cooperate.

This week, the story got even weirder, with Bodog's offices in Manila being raided by local police. On November 21, the offices were raided due to a tip that Bodog's offices were involved with illegal local gambling in the Philippines, a game known as Jueteng. Calvin Ayre's crew is accusing the indicted group of former employees of bribing their way into this raid, despite knowing Bodog was not guilty of the local gambling involvement. Bodog is allowed to have a headquarters in Manila, with the agreement that they will not offer gambling to any Philippines residents.

Here is the article: http://calvinayre.com/2013/11/22/bus...-more-charges/

It is also alleged in the article that Jan Robert Gustafsson was embezzling Bodog money all over the place, including large payments to send his son to an expensive private school.

Here is Gustafsson:

http://calvinayre.com/wp-content/upl...n-ex-bodog.jpg


Here is Selin:

http://calvinayre.com/wp-content/upl...n-ex-bodog.jpg


The commentary at the bottom of each photo was done by writers of calvinayre.com, but this sort of thing is typical in their news articles. What is atypical is that these articles are about Bodog itself!

At the moment, I wouldn't panic, though the customer service for Bodog/Bovada is affected by this office closure -- at least temporarily.

Finally, as a weird twist, three obvious fake accounts were created on 2+2, all apparently the work of the same person or people. These accounts were used to drum up panic on 2+2 regarding Bodog's stability, given recent developments.

The account names were Gamester454, Hardhitter111, and Hardhunter555. Not very creative, right? Here are various quotes from these accounts:

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Hey, can anyone pls confirm. I heard from a source that Set of Bovada's offices in the Philippines and United States have been raided today. Got investments in that company.

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I heard that Calvin the founder, has been organizing numerous “dummy” corporations in the Philippines as part of his on-going efforts to fully relocate the base of his world-wide illegal gambling and money laundering operations in the Philippines.

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Nooooooooooooooooooooooo way. Gotta move out my money from the company. But if they are already close, how will I be able to that.

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Very familiar situation that happened to Full Tilt, with no money being paid out...I think they are going bankrupt

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dragongfang1- I just did pull out from them. better to be safe. And to help other gamers. Lets spread the word. This is really alarming.

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This is a lot weirder than the CA stories indicate, and there is a major pissing match going on behind the scenes between the CA empire and its former employees, including Gustafsson. I'm in possession of a lot more stuff than what's already been published, but the truth is that it's almost impossible to determine who or what is credible.

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Originally Posted by haleylh

This is a lot weirder than the CA stories indicate, and there is a major pissing match going on behind the scenes between the CA empire and its former employees, including Gustafsson. I'm in possession of a lot more stuff than what's already been published, but the truth is that it's almost impossible to determine who or what is credible.

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Do you have information indicating wrongdoing on Bodog's part?

If Gustafsson and others were really embezzling, it's hard to think that Bodog could be at much fault here.

Hard to say, and I'm waiting on some more info from several people. I have seen the Philippine indictments, but Gustafsson alleges that those are bogus charges and also claims he's filed some counter-charges and that Calvin has been involved in other stuff. (Not really Bodog, per se, but Calvin personally.) What Gustafsson has sent, however, shows no signs of having actually been filed in a Philippine court, and his communications are a good deal less than professional; he's levied so many weird accusations and smears it's just hard to take it all seriously.

If there's one thing that raises my eyebrows, however, it's the question of how all these people managed to be working for Bodog Asia if they're all such horrible criminals. Geez, it looks like Gustafsson was getting a quarter million a year or thereabouts, and I for sure could screw up things for a lot less. (Hire me! Hire me!)

I surmise, therefore, that the smearing is going on in both directions. I take G911 with a grain of salt when it comes to these stories, and I don't think anything that's out there is close to being 100% true.

Phone support still down but Bovada still offering a black friday bonus special for Black Friday with some rollover requirements:

http://sports.bovada.lv/content/spor...y-reload-bonus

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Originally Posted by BeerAndPoker

Phone support still down but Bovada still offering a black friday bonus special for Black Friday with some rollover requirements:

http://sports.bovada.lv/content/spor...y-reload-bonus

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Interesting.

20% bonus, no limit.

Offer Details: This offer expires at 11:59pm, November 29. Standard rollover applies 3X sports / 20X casino / 3X poker points per dollar.

So this isn't all that good, since you need to bet it 3x on sports, and their vig is the standard 10% each bet.

I guess it could be good for poker if you're going to play a lot anyway, but you do have to pay a LOT of rake to get it off. You only get one poker point per $1-$3 rake, meaning you will have to rake anywhere from 3-9x the deposit to clear the bonus. This is CONTRIBUTED rake, meaning just being sat in at the table while rake is paid doesn't count. You actually have to pay the rake yourself.

With that said, I really wish they still had beatable teasers, because I would have loaded up big time.

It confuses me a bit but you get 3 points per dollar of rake contributed. I know that from playing tournaments and sngs but when playing cash I see the points come in faster. I may be confused here because it's rather vague but It appears that cash is instant, however, to cash out you likely have to clear the entire bonus if it's like some of the ones they have ran in the past.

The thing is is Bovada might say "unlimited" bonuses within that time period but you can only send them one WU and one MG deposit I believe in 24 hours by their rules so the rest would be depositing by credit card paying their 4.9% juice they charge for that which might fool the average person but not me.

I don't need anymore money on there but if anyone did I believe this is their new temporary number for depositing only until they get their lines back up : 1-888-739-2220