Did Bodog Founder Calvin Ayre Sell His Soul to the Devil?

It's a question people have been asking for years: Did Bodog founder Calvin Ayre sell his soul to the devil?

With a lifestyle that seems unattainable for most mere mortals, Ayre enjoyed a seemingly endless stream of cash, booze and women. He hobnobbed with big name celebrities who fawned over him as if he were the one with the Academy Award. Ayre's opulent lifestyle would eventually land him on the cover of Forbes prestigious billionaire's issue in March of 2006. It all seemed to good to be true....and maybe it was.

Fame and fortune brought with it opportunists: A stalker, lawsuits, government inquiries and a whole laundry lists of negatives.

To this day, Ayre insists he is living the life of a pharaoh, though he doesn't dare disclose which country he is now "visiting". That's because Bodog's now retired founder is widely believed to be a target of a US investigation. On Wednesday, Forbes Magazine reported that The U.S. government recently seized $24 million from bank accounts linked to Bodog and "federal filings make very clear that a serious criminal investigation of the Bodog enterprise is ongoing".

Forbes also suggest that there is an increased "possibility of criminal action against Ayre himself. There already has been published speculation in his native Canada that he is under secret indictment somewhere in the U.S."

Those close to Ayre say he is now limited in the number of countries he can visit. That's because most have extradition treaties with the United States.

Countries Ayre can visit without fear of being extradited by US authorities include Algeria, Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bophuthatswana, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Burundi,

Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, China (People's Republic of China), Ciskei, The Comors, Cote d' Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Jordan, Korea (South), Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Maldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Oman, Philippines, Principe and San Tome, Qatar, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Western Samoa, Yemen, Zaire, and Zimbabwe.

The fame and fortune seems to be evaporating faster than a punctured balloon.

"Mr. Ayre could have sold his soul to the Devil. How? Very simply by doing his way instead of God's way. It all started in the Garden of Eden," explains Gambling911.com resident spiritual advisor Pastor Trask.

The Pastor cited Gen 3:1-6, drawing parallels to Ayre's life:

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it."

Ayre is often photographed eating fruit while bedding beautiful women, some of whom are half his age.

That day, Adam and Eve not only sold their soul, but they also sold their rulership to the devil. They used to be in charge of God's nature: Gen 1:26 "Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'" NIV But once they gave in to the voice of the devil, they handed their rulership to the evil one.

Sue Schneider, of Interactive Gaming News, who has known Ayre since the mid-1990s, agrees that Ayre may be too far removed from reality if he really believes the US Government cannot come after him.

"He can think he's safe," she said in an interview with Fast Company Magazine. "But he's not."

----

Payton O'Brien, Gambling911.com Senior Editor