Bodog closes Costa Rican office

Calvin Ayre, the founder of the Bodog Brand, announced Tuesday on his website that the company has speeded up closure of the Bodog service provider office in Costa Rica saying quote:

“A Costa Rican based business process outsourcing company (BPO) providing services to the Bodog Brand has expedited its closure after fears it will be wrongly associated with the Bodog.com Indictments. After the brand licensing agreement with the Bodog Brand and Morris Mohawk Gaming was terminated in December 2011, along with ever increasingly restrictive economic conditions in Costa Rica, the BPO had already started to make plans to wind down its operations.

“The plan was for a gradual shut down of operations to minimize disruptions to their staff. But the closure was expedited after its management feared the mainstream media reporting of the indictments could result in the BPO wrongly being caught up in the proceedings.

The statement goes on to say: “The false claim that Bodog was employing hundreds of employees in Costa Rica comes from a misinformed view of international business,” and “the company named in the indictment, Bodog Entertainment Group S.A. was only a domain management company. The Bodog Brand granted it use of the Bodog name to make it easier for the management company to go after trademark infringements under existing US trademarks. It never operated a gaming business in the US or otherwise. The company shut down in 2008 in a restructuring move after Scott Lewis of 1st Technology attacked Bodog.com, successfully stealing the domain. All of the domains the company managed were moved to a non-Costa Rican based management company.”

Other media reports suggest that employees of the BPO had little warning of the closure and arrived at the office to find themselves locked out.