Calvin Ayre No Longer Among the Richest

Absent from this year's list of Forbes Wealthiest people: Internet Gambling guru Calvin Ayre.  He's the mastermind behind the Bodog.com brand and last year appeared on the cover of Forbes highly coveted Billionaire's Issue.  Gambling911.com was referenced in that article as we trekked down to Costa Rica to meet with Ayre and the writer of that piece, Matt Miller.

It's just as well he does not appear in such a listing.  The day that article first hit the news stands, Ayre had his home in Costa Rica raided by a bus load of local police (and, yes, they did arrive in a bus).  No charges were ever filed but it left a bad enough taste in Ayre's mouth that he has since relocated to the tiny internet-gambling friendly, Antigua.

Make no mistake about it, Ayre is still very very wealthy.  If he just barely cracked billionaire status last year, he just barely missed this year.  Ayre was featured on Thursday night's edition of ABC's NightLine for a second time.

22 fellow Canadians did make the cut, including Cirque du Soleil’s Guy Laliberte (US$1.5-billion), french fry powerhouse Wallace McCain (US$2.6-billion), and activist investor Stephen Jarislowsky (US$1.9-billion).

The Saskatchewan-born Internet gambling founder of Bodog.com's wealth was dragged down by new laws limiting financial institutions from doing business with offshore gambling Web sites.

Mr. Ayre appeared on the cover with two others who made their money from online gambling -- Ruth Parasol and Russell DeLeon. They, too, failed to make the list this year.

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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com

Originally published March 9, 2007 9:50 am ET