One of the “founding fathers” of the online casino industry will soon reach a momentous milestone. Bodog.net, the online gaming site launched in 1994, will soon deal its billionth (1,000,000,000) online blackjack hand. At its current pace, the milestone hand will be dealt in the next thirty to forty-five days.
The Bodog brand has been widely recognized among the longest-lasting entities in the online gaming industry. The company also has a successful sports betting site and a leading online poker site. Bodog also previously established both a recording label (Bodog Music) and a mixed martial arts promotion (bodogFight).
At press time, the site was more than twenty-one million hands away from dealing the major milestone hand. Once the site reaches twenty-one million hands away from one billion, Bodog will reward its customers by giving US$1,000 to every player who plays in every millionth hand.
Players in those hands will also be entered into a drawing for a “billionaire’s experience”. The winner of the billionth hand will also win the “billionaire’s experience”. Winners will choose between a trip to the 2011 Monaco Grand Prix auto race or a vacation on the South Pacific island of Fiji.
The “billionaire’s experience” theme stems from the life of Bodog founder Calvin Ayre, the Canadian pioneer of the online gaming field. Ayre and his partners founded Bodog in 1994 with only US$10,000. Today, Ayre’s net worth is estimated at over US$1 billion. Ayre retired from Bodog in April 2008, a month before his 47th birthday.
