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Two month long payout delays, IRS threats about confiscating funds and a retired founder, Calvin Ayre, without a country - all things that have become synonymous with Bodog in recent times. The once proud online gambling venture could do little wrong between the years 2001 and 2007, during which time Gambling911.com made the fledgling startup a household name.
Bodog fell on hard times over the last year. A trademark infringement suit forced the site's domain name offline then the US Government came after a good chunk of their millions.
A ray of hope emerged this week however. No, Ayre hasn't gotten a sex change and returned to the US as Ellen Dayre. Bodog is now paying people...on time!
"They are getting better," a poster on the Sports Book Review forums acknowledged in regard to the payout times. "In September it was taking about 4 weeks to get a check. I have been getting my last few in about 4-6 business days."
A forum moderator chimed in: "Management is confident enough in their processor resources to say the bottleneck won't happen again anytime soon. The end of football will be a good test for them."
One affiliate told Gambling911.com: "They can't get new depositors in yet, but they wanted to get the bottleneck fixed before they focus on getting deposits in. The last thing they wanted was to focus on deposits before they could handle payouts timely. Conversion rates are still low for deposits."
Whether Bodog can fully recover over the next year remains to be seen. Their online poker room continues to struggle as the 14th biggest card room, down nearly 40 percent over last year.
Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
