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They say Laos is lovely this time of year.
So are Qatar, Angola and Nepal.
Vietnam gets a little hot, however, as does Cambodia and Indonesia.
And of course Libya, Tunisia and Syria are hot spots right now too, but in a different way.
For Canadian billionaire and Bodog.com founder Calvin Ayre, however, these Third-World hell-holes might be looking like islands of paradise right about now.
Ayre, 50, was indicted by U.S. officials this week for his role in the operation of Bodog.com, an online sportsbook that took bets from U.S. customers in violation of U.S. laws.
Arrest warrants were issued for him and several colleagues, but as of now, his whereabouts are unknown.
He would be wise, however, to avoid his homeland of Canada, as well as Costa Rica, where Bodog.com is based, because both those countries have extradition treaties with the United States.
If local authorities in Canada or Costa Rica, or any country with an extradition treaty with the U.S., nab Ayre, the U.S. can petition for extradition back to the USA, where he would be tried.
So it would behoove Ayre to split pronto to a country that has no extradition treaty with the USA.
The problem is, of course, that most of the nations of the world have such treaties with the U.S., at least most of the ones where a man of Ayre's means would want to hang out.
Unfortunately, he can't go to France or Italy or Spain, places where a billionaire could live out the rest of his life in comfort--all have extradition treaties with the U.S.
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He can't even retire to secretive bastions such as Switzerland or the Cayman Islands, they too have extradition treaties with the USA.
So where, you might wonder, can Calvin go?
Gambling911.com investigated the issue, and the answers ain't pretty.
The countries that don't have extradition treaties with the United States are, for the most part, either backwards backwoods nations, tyrannical dictatorships or both.
But then again, when you're on the run, and face dozens of years behind bars in a foreign prison, as Ayre does, laying low in Lebanon or slumming it in Somalia may just be the ticket.
Here are the countries that currently do not have an extradition treaty with the U.S., meaning a fugitive hiding out in one of those countries could not be turned over to U.S. authorities: Afghanistan, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antarctica, Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Comoros, Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Iran, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Madagascar, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Mozambique, Myanmar (Burma), Namibia, Nepal, Niger, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Samoa, São Tomé and Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Yemen and Zimbabwe.
So according to the list, Cuba, who the U.S. doesn't even have diplomatic relations with, would hand Ayre over, while Saudi Arabia, who does have diplomatic relations with the U.S. and close ones at that, would not.
Only in America!
By Tom Somach
Gambling911.com Staff Writer
