Hey, so were any of you April Fooled? I have been laughing out loud at this since we launched. What I really liked with this plan was that even once you got the joke, the articles rolling out were still funny. The comic killed me! But for some of you, loading this site yesterday morning must have been like popping in a DVD of Apocalypse Now and discovering it actually contained a copy of The Sound of Music. Were your hills alive with the sound of… What the fuck?
As a quick scan of the many off-the-mark predictions he has made over the years will show, Scott holds an almost spiritual faith in public companies. Seriously, it’s as if he was wet-nursed by one and has never quite completely managed to pull his lips off its teat. In Scott’s view, if you’re not listed on some stock exchange, it must be because the market thinks your company hasn’t yet made the grade. Ergo, you simply don’t deserve the key to the public company executive washroom, where everybody’s fecal matter smells like lilacs and they piss pure Earl Grey Tea.
I, on the other hand, am equally convinced that the privately held company model is a far superior structure for the online gaming industry. Going public may be great for company founders who want to cash in and offload future risk onto the backs of shareholders, but just ask the people whose job it is to keep these baggage-heavy public companies aloft which model they’d prefer. The heavyweight online gaming companies in Asia – the planet’s single biggest market — are all privately held, but I believe the west is also catching on. The recently announced tie-up between Wynn Resorts and PokerStars is just the latest proof that my side of this argument is gaining followers, in this case the publicly traded Wynn Resorts seem to be voting with their reputation for my strategy.
Of course, Scott may have secretly been a follower of mine all along. (FYI, Scott — we have forensic methods of proving that the very first comment on this site’s redesign came from your computer, so clearly CalvinAyre.com must be one of the first sites you visit each morning. Thanks for your continued support!) His public stance is so rigidly opposed to my own that I have to suspect he’s overcompensating for his burning desire to Live Like Calvin. Deep down, all he really wants to do is loosen that starched collar, get to know a few Bodog girls, maybe exchange that bone-dry public company teat for one a little more juicy.
As for the rest of you, we hope our little stunt managed to give you (at a minimum) a chuckle. We certainly chuckled when we saw that iGamingIntelligence’s Daily Buzz Report listed the ‘sale’ of CalvinAyre.com right below the supposed big news of the day: Pwin’s official debut of their somewhat unwieldy name and equally unwieldy company. The ultimate example of the urge to merge paired right alongside our merciless mocking of same. Ah, synergy… Anyway, we promise to keep altering your perceptions and challenging industry orthodoxies for years to come.
— Calvin
P.S.: MY APRIL FOOLS ‘GREATEST HITS’
• Ooops… Is that MY dick?
• My epic war with Hail Mary Sportsbook.
• Losing Bodog to Virgin’s Richard Branson in a hand of poker?
• My “Space Casino“.
• My reality show to find “Calvin’s Heir.”
