Tag: slots.com

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Slots.net redirects to Slots.com, Did Calvin Ayre’s Bodog Brand buy it?

Slots.net

2010 was an expensive year for Calvin Ayre when it came to buying domain names.

In June 2010, Calvin Ayre’s Bodog Brand purchased the domain name slots.com for a reported $5.5 million, which grabbed headlines for weeks.  A month later in July, Bodog Brand acquired the Canadian top level country code domain, slots.ca, for $206,906 at Moniker.

It now looks like Calvin Ayre has continued his buying spree for more “slots” domains. 

If you hadn’t noticed, the web address slots.net now re-directs to the slots.com website.  Re-directing the name, was the same technique used for the slots.ca domain after its purchase. 

It’s not confirmed yet whether Bodog Brand was the actual buyer of slots.net, but if I were a gambling man, I’d put my money on Calvin Ayre as the new owner.  At the time of this story, the sale has gone unreported. 

If a deal was cut, one can only guess that the price may have been in the seven figures.  Last year, Poker.org sold for $1,000,000.

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Calvin Ayre looking for feedback on $3.5 million domain name Slots.com

Slots.com

On Wednesday, Calvin Ayre’s Bodog issued a press release.  The company is looking for feedback on its Slots.com web site which recently launched into beta. 

“In this early launch period, Slots.com, is seeking feedback and giving customers the chance to be part of the growth plan by shaping the future of the site. The initial slots offering will see significant additions over the months as Slots.com reacts to the directives of its players,” reads the opening of the release.

Shortly after the press release went online, Jamie Hinks a writer for Calvin Ayre’s Tablog posted a story that talks more about the domain, and less about the website, entitled: Slots.com needs you!

“For a site that generates 35.1million hits on Google for “Slots” it’s little wonder that the amount paid was the most in 2010 and one of the top ten ever. Only second to Casino.com, Slots.com’s European Head of Marketing, Charlie Goodenough, believes that Slots.com is the best gaming domain in the world, better than even Poker.com because there are no strong brands in the space.”

Gambling domain names are an exciting space.  As I wrote earlier in the week, the deal for gambling.com is expected to complete in the second quarter, and Calvin Ayre has been rumored to be a possible buyer.  Also, later today, Governor Chris Christie is expected to make a decision on New Jersey’s internet gambling bill.

UPDATE:  Governor Chris Christie has conditionally vetoed the bill.  Hope isn’t lost though, as Bill Beaty reports over at CalvinAyre.com.

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Calvin Ayre offers up 8 predictions for the gambling industry in 2011

crystal ball

If you’re a gambling domain investor and are curious about what Calvin Ayre has to say about the gambling industry, today he offered up 8 predictions for what’s to come in 2011. 

The buyer behind Slots.com and Slots.ca in 2010, Calvin Ayre didn’t hint at the sale price of Gambling.com, or specifically anything about domain names, but maybe that’s because he’s eyeing the category-killing domain for himself.  

He certainly has the cash to do so. 

In July, the self-made billionaire behind Bodog, purchased Slots.ca for $206,906.  Shortly before that, he purchased Slots.com for a deal totalling $5.85 million.

Calvin Ayre’s 2011 Predictions

Calvin Ayre opens his article on the less serious side with predictions like “Harry Reid will attempt (and fail) to slip a 1,900 page online bingo bill into a Senate roll call” and “At least one major poker company is killed by the cruel hand of the marketplace; two others commit ritual suicide after being bullied once too often on CalvinAyre.com.”

But if you scroll to the bottom of the story, Calvin Ayre offers up several serious predictions:

The launch by (at least) one US state of its own online gambling operation will set in motion a process that ultimately undermines any attempt at instituting online gambling at the federal level

2011 will see a continued increase in global stature for privately-held, London-based online gaming companies like Bet365 at the expense of publicly-traded companies and private companies based in less professional jurisdictions (where it’s much harder to build world-class teams).

Europe will continue its Balkanization trend, with each country having its own set of rules (also referred to as walled gardens in some reports).

Read Calvin Ayre’s full list of serious and not-so-serious gambling predictions for 2011.

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Slots.com buyer Calvin Ayre: Not for nothing do people say ‘content is king’

Bodog Girl

On CalvinAyre.com today Billionaire Calvin Ayre wrote an article about the Adweek Media and Harris Interactive survey that indicates: “almost two-thirds (63%) of Americans claim to ignore internet advertising”.   Calvin Ayre’s article centers around the same survey that Robin Wauters discussed over at TechCrunch earlier this month.

While Robin discussed the results of the survey, little insight into how companies trying to build their brand should go about it online was offered.

However, Calvin Ayre did.

The data in this survey highlights the folly of any company attempting to build brand value predominantly via online advertising. Seriously, the only people getting rich off this arrangement are the companies who get paid to host the ads. Not for nothing do people say ‘content is king’. The branded content I’ve created over the years for the Bodog Brand and its associated entertainment properties – BodogFight, BodogMusic, Calvin Ayre WildCard Poker — not only made a significantly greater impression on viewers than a plain old banner or pop-up ad, it continues to resonate years after its initial release, and will continue to do so for however long digital media exists.

Calvin Ayre knows a thing or two about building an online brand.  As the public face of Bodog, he launched the company with little more than  $10,000 in 1994.  He is now a billionaire.

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Calvin Ayre: ‘Slots.com purchase is one of the best deals I’ve ever made’

calvin ayre

Billionaires have been known to blog, but it’s quite rare that billionaires blog as often as Calvin Ayre who averages about 3 to 4 stories per month on his online gambling news site at CalvinAyre.com. 

What’s even more rare, is for billionaires to blog about domain names.  But that’s just what Calvin Ayre did this week in a story entitled: Slots.com purchase is one of the best deals I’ve ever made.

Have you been wondering whether Calvin Ayre regrets paying $5.5 million earlier this year for the Slots.com domain name?

Not a chance, Calvin writes: “I’m sure a lot of people thought I was off my rocker when they first heard that Bodog Brand had purchased the Slots.com domain at auction for $5.5m in May of this year. After they learned the deal had gone down while I was enjoying a drink at London’s L’Atelier restaurant, they probably thought I was wasted, too. And while I might have been enjoying a bevvie or two (or three, etc.) at the moment I pulled the trigger, I have yet to experience a single shred of ‘morning after’ regret.”

Read more about Calvin Ayre’s thoughts on the Slots.com purchase.