There are now 67 Canadian billionaires and one of them, Calvin Ayre, is well connected to the Shuswap. He was born in Saskatchewan, where his parents had a pig farm near Lloydminster until they moved to Grandview Bench near Salmon Arm. Calvin attended South Canoe Elementary School, then Shuswap Junior High and finally Salmon Arm Secondary, where he graduated in 1979. Hockey was the sport he loved to play after school, and he enjoyed skiing both on the water and on the mountain slopes. His pride in school was his 1969 long box Chevy pickup, which he used for his first business venture, selling fruit. One of his classmates remembers him as a confident “swash buckler” with the gift of gab, who often enjoyed being the centre of attention.
Thanks in part to his three academic scholarships including one for receiving the highest local marks for the scholarship exam, Calvin attended the University of Waterloo, where he received a Bachelor of Science. For a side gig in college, he organized party trips to Cuba. His formal education culminated after he graduated from the City University of Seattle in 1989 with an MBA in management finance.
He began his career selling commercial real estate in Vancouver, where he realized the potential of using the latest technological wonder, the internet, for online gambling. After teaching himself network design by studying Cisco Systems manuals, in 1996 he developed a software support company based in Costa Rica. Four years later, he created an online gambling company that he called Bodog, a name he chose after a late-night domain registration search for a unique moniker that had less than six letters, was easy to remember and spell, and was totally unlike any of his competitors.
Bodog’s marketing strategy revolved around his extravagant, jackpot winning, bachelor lifestyle that included hosting wild parties with bikini-clad “Bodog Girls, celebrities and armed guards. His “bad-boy” adventure image and TV appearances helped propel his company to the top and in 2006 he graced the cover of the Forbes magazine ‘Billionaire’ issue. When the U.S. changed the laws regulating online gambling, Calvin adjusted the business, so it operated in various countries, thus skirting the regulations.
Calvin has now moved on from his online gambling business and inspired by Virgin founder Richard Branson, Bodog now includes other businesses, including a record label, television production, a music label, real estate, crypto-currency and even a martial arts league. Perhaps his most ambitious new project is “Metanet,” which he considers to be the next evolution of the internet. Using blockchain technology, Metanet will enable cost-efficient micropayments to foster more direct connections with users and eliminate “rent-seeking middlemen.”
The Caribbean Island of Antiqua is now Calvin’s home base, although he has homes and operations in other countries as well. With employees to run his businesses, Calvin focuses on his hobbies, which includes designing and building properties and most recently, boats. To date, he has completed 10 house projects, including a massive estate in Sunnybrae on 73 acres that was completed in 2019 is now for sale by local Realtor® Annette Cosens with Sotheby’s International Realty Canada for only $22 million (reduced from $30 million). The property, Fighting Dog Ranch, includes two homes with a total of 11 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms, a six-car, heated garage, 1,200 feet of private shoreline, five RV sites, two docks, a full-service beach cabana and much more. With his busy lifestyle, Calvin was only able to spend a total of 4 weeks at his Sunnybrae ranch, and he now envisions it could become either a corporate retreat or a boutique hotel.
Income disparity has become one of society’s greatest social ills, with the wealthy controlling an ever-increasing amount of the economy. Calvin is no doubt aware of the issue and now giving back through a foundation he set up 15 years ago that focuses on emergency response, social development and education and sports in eight countries.
When he learned I was working on this article, Calvin sent an email with details about his current ventures, the principles that guide his work and his current goals. Functional design is at the core of all his projects, and he now also selects the art that adorns the wall using themes such the Great Gatsby, the Jazz Age and art deco. His email began with some humour, “Take it from a guy who grew up on a pig farm, a pig wearing lipstick is still a pig.”
POSTSCRIPT
The impetus for this article came when I discovered that one of the most expensive properties listed for sale in the province’s interior was located in Sunnybrae and thus my research kicked into high gear. What is perhaps most significant for all of us in the Shuswap is that a billionaire considered Shuswap Lake to be worthy of such an expensive estate. No doubt that Calvin agreed with most of us that the Shuswap is one of the best places in the world to live!
The Fighting Dog Ranch property was once part of the adjacent Bastion Ranch that was established after World War II by a French soldier who settled there. There was no road then and everyone had to be transported in and out by boat. Currently, there is a caretaker living at Fighting Dog Ranch as it awaits a new, wealthy owner. You can learn more about the property by visiting the Realtor’s website, 6525 Worrall Road, Sunnybrae. Here is a map of the property:
Calvin’s journey to wealth was not without some major bumps in the road, especially given that the route he took did not always align with societal norms. His first difficulty came in 1987 when police broke a smuggling operation that involved importing 750 lbs of marijuana from Jamaica to Canada. Cavin’s father Ken was sentenced to four years in jail and Calvin was determined by the judge to be an uncharged, co-conspirator who “undoubtedly played a part in this whole scheme or was part of the whole arrangement”. Then in 1996, he was civilly charged with insider trading and had to settle by paying a $10,000 fine and being banished from the Vancouver Stock Exchange until 2016. After he set up his Costa Rica based, Bodog gambling website in 2000, he avoided the U.S. law that prohibits taking bets from Americans by wiring the money to London, processing the bets in Costa Rica, developing the marketing and technology in Canada while advertising in the U.S.
The playboy lifestyle that Calvin led for many years was legendary, so it is no wonder that it was once the topic of a Playboy Magazine article. He has yet to marry, and loves taking risks such as riding motorcycles, scuba diving, wakeboarding, flying airplanes and playing hockey and rugby. At age 45, he told a magazine reporter, “My most expensive habit is serial dating. I can fly a woman to Hawaii for a weekend to be my date for a wedding.” One of his legendary parties was in Las Vegas, where there were midgets, jugglers, Brazilian dancers on stilts, stuff falling out of the sky and the ‘De rigueur’ open bar. Given his wealthy status, Calvin gets to party with other rich and famous celebrities like Justin Timberlake, Jack Nicholson, Cameron Diaz and Jerry Buss, the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.
It appears that Calvin is mellowing out as he ages, but his incredible drive persists as continues to diversify his businesses, as well as give back to those in need. You can learn more about his latest projects by visiting his websites: The Calvin Ayre Group and The Calvin Ayre Foundation.
