Calvin Ayre
| Calvin Ayre | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
May 25, 1961 Lloydminster, Saskatchewan |
| Education | Bachelor of Science (BSc) in general sciences, University of Waterloo MBA in management finance, City University of Seattle |
| Known for | Becoming a self-made billionaire by founding online gambling venture Bodog |
| Website | calvinayre |
Calvin Ayre (born May 25, 1961, in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, Canada) is a Canadian and Antiguan entrepreneur based in Antigua and Barbuda, and founder of the Bodog entertainment brand.
In 1992 he laid the groundwork for the organization that eventually became online gambling company Bodog and the associated Bodog Entertainment brand. In 2000 he launched Bodog.com, the success of which made him a billionaire. Ayre's notoriety increased in the mid-2000s as online gaming’s popularity surged, landing him on the cover of Forbes magazine's 2006 annual Billionaires edition and Star magazine’s "Most Eligible Billionaire Bachelors” list in late 2007.
Ayre modeled his personal brand after Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and the way Branson applied the Virgin brand to a diverse range of business ventures. Ayre plans to build Bodog into a mainstream 21st-century digital entertainment conglomerate. He is noted for his "billionaire bad boy" image yet shrewd business sense.
Ayre grew up on a farm outside Lloydminster where his father Ken grew wheat and raised pigs. He received an early lesson in the benefits of entrepreneurship when his father gave him his own baby pigs to look after, allowing Ayre to keep the proceeds when the pigs went to market. Ayre, who describes his father as his "number one hero", later put these lessons to work when he paid his university tuition by renting a truck and running loads of fresh fruit from orchards in British Columbia to northern Saskatchewan. His father then moved his family to Salmon Arm, B.C., where he ran a water system installation business. Calvin graduated from high school in Salmon Arm.
In 1984, Ayre received a bachelor of science (BSc) in general sciences from the University of Waterloo, adding an MBA in management finance from City University of Seattle in 1989.
In 1992, after reading a newspaper article about a Caribbean-based company offering betting services over the telephone, Ayre reports experiencing a "loud bang in my head and the whole universe came together." He quickly deduced that gambling was tailor-made for the internet. "Internet usage was growing at an exponential rate and sports fans weren’t going anywhere." Having taught himself network design by studying Cisco Systems manuals, Ayre decided to convert his fledgling Vancouver-based Internet incubator company into a software support firm for online gambling, which became Bodog. He was able to license his software to several online casinos, but soon realized that the real money was in running his own gaming operation.
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