'Illegal' net gamer seeks UK go-ahead

Calvin Ayre is the high-living, big-spending chief executive of Bodog, the notorious online gambling company that decided to flout the prohibition on US internet gaming and continue taking Americans' bets.

There are widespread claims that his operations taking online wagers from Americans are illegal, while he is banned from being a director of a public company in British Columbia, Canada, because of his involvement in a share-trading scandal. He is a hate figure for the conservative Bush establishment in the US.

He was also linked to a cannabis smuggling conspiracy in 1989 for which his father was jailed. Bodog continued providing bets in the US from his base in the Caribbean even after every other major company, including Britain's PartyGaming and Sportingbet, pulled out.

Ayre and the small number of other rogue operators still there are thought to have made hundreds of millions of dollars in profit since the 2006 ban. Bodog handled £12 billion of bets last year, and revenues rose to £320 million, Ayre told the Guardian today.

The company is famous for its lavish parties in Costa Rica, laid on for its high-rollers and featuring bikini-clad Bodog Girls and armed bodyguards. He counts Paris Hilton as a close friend and has his own record label with the Wu-Tang Clan rap group among its badboy artists.

Ayre is seeking a licence to trade in the UK despite the Government's unpopular 15% tax imposed on online players last year. The tax has put off other companies, who say it drives them offshore.

If he is to receive a licence from the British authorities, he would have to pass a "fit and proper operator" test. Industry regulator the Gambling Commission confirmed it was considering Bodog applications.

Ayre said he did not necessarily need the licence to take British punters' bets as he could still do so from his base in Antigua. The playboy says he bases his business profile on Sir Richard Branson, Hugh Hefner and Paris Hilton, getting across the impression of a man living the dream of the jackpot-winning millionaire. He was brought up in far less salubrious environs, on a pig farm in Saskatchewan.