{"id":416,"date":"2018-02-19T13:21:28","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T12:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=416"},"modified":"2018-02-19T13:21:28","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T12:21:28","slug":"gambling-tycoon-builds-100m-bitcoin-funded-antiguan-resort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/?p=416","title":{"rendered":"Gambling tycoon builds $100m bitcoin-funded Antiguan resort"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Calvin Ayre, a gambling and bitcoin multi-millionaire who was once on the run from the US authorities, is building a $100m five-star resort on Antigua funded by profits from digital currencies.<\/p>\n<p>Canadian-born Ayre, who has been appointed Antigua and Barbuda\u2019s special economic envoy, said he had begun work on the upmarket tourist resort on Antigua\u2019s Valley Church beach.<\/p>\n<p>Ayre, who\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/nathanvardi\/2017\/07\/14\/former-online-gambling-billionaire-calvin-ayre-pleads-guilty-to-misdemeanor-charge\/#75ab52fa53e3\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">pleaded guilty to a single federal misdemeanour last year after a decade on the run from the US investigators<\/a>, said the Ayre Resort would be entirely funded by profits made from the rise in value of bitcoin in which he was an early investor.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"element element-atom\" data-atom-id=\"78014307-ca67-47dc-b524-d5f24f3dbcd8\" data-atom-type=\"qanda\">\n<details class=\"atom atom--snippet atom--snippet--qanda\" data-snippet-id=\"78014307-ca67-47dc-b524-d5f24f3dbcd8\" data-snippet-type=\"qanda\">\n<summary class=\"atom--snippet__header\"><span class=\"atom--snippet__label\">Q&amp;A<\/span><\/summary>\n<h4 class=\"atom--snippet__headline\">What is bitcoin and is it a bad investment?<\/h4>\n<summary class=\"atom--snippet__header\"><button class=\"atom__button atom__button--large atom__button--rounded atom--snippet__handle\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><span class=\"is-on\">Show<\/span><\/button><\/summary>\n<\/details>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said: \u201cWe expect the resort\u2019s novel and exciting concept to broaden Antigua and Barbuda\u2019s tourism product and bring a new category of tourists to our islands. We look forward to working with Mr Ayre on this resort and the many other investments he has made in Antigua.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ayre, 56, to whom Antigua and Barbuda has given the official title of \u201chis excellency\u201d, said: \u201cThis resort will attract a totally new market segment of tourism on the island \u2014 successful wellness-seekers who also want to have fun. The property will not be an all-inclusive destination. Instead, its amenities will be available to residents of Antigua and Barbuda and visitors alike.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The resort will accept bitcoin cash, which forked from bitcoin last year, at point of sale terminals on the property and through its online booking engine.<\/p>\n<p>Ayre, whose pig-farmer father was convicted of smuggling marijuana, was barred from acting as a director of a public company in British Columbia following a share-trading scandal in the 1990s.\u00a0<a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2011\/jul\/31\/calvin-ayre-bodog-king-of-bling\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">He recovered from that setback to create Bodog, one of the largest online gambling brands in the world<\/a>, and the business\u2019s growth led to him judging televised lingerie contests during the Super Bowl and being the subject of a six-page profile in Playboy magazine\u2014 Ayre bought 3,000 copies of the issue for himself.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--upgraded\" data-component=\"rich-link\" data-link-name=\"rich-link-1 | 1\">\n<div class=\"rich-link tone-feature--item rich-link--pillar-news\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__container\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__image-container u-responsive-ratio\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"rich-link__header\">\n<h1 class=\"rich-link__title\"><a class=\"rich-link__link\">Calvin Ayre: web gambling&#8217;s king of bling takes a chance on the regulator<\/a><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more\">\n<div class=\"rich-link__arrow\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"rich-link__read-more-text\">Read more<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The success of Bodog attracted the attention of US authorities when Forbes magazine profiled Ayre with a front cover entitled: \u201cCatch Me If You Can: Calvin Ayre has gotten very rich by taking illegal bets over the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ayre said his actions were legal because of a complex series of financial transactions on three different continents. Felony charges against Ayre, Bodog and three other Canadian men were dropped last year.<\/p>\n<p>Source\u00a0https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2018\/feb\/18\/bitcoin-gambling-tycoon-builds-100m-resort-antigua-calvin-ayre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Calvin Ayre, a gambling and bitcoin multi-millionaire who was once on the run from the US authorities, is building a $100m five-star resort on Antigua funded by profits from digital currencies. Canadian-born Ayre, who has been appointed Antigua and Barbuda\u2019s special economic envoy, said he had begun work on the upmarket tourist resort on Antigua\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishdailynews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}