Online media unsubstantiated reports such as Poker News Daily and 911 indicate that this week the Bodog gambling group has let go “hundreds of employees” in what is being interpreted as a precursor to departing the North American market, though this has been denied by company spokesmen.

There are allegations that Bodog has been slow-paying customers in recent months, though this may well be a not uncommon problem associated with processing US payments occasioned by the UIGEA.

The company is known to have been making a determined push into Europe and Asia since at the beginning of 2008, though as far as online poker operations are concerned this isn’t yet reflected in their latest PokerScout rankings that have shown a fall in the average amount of real cash players per week, repositioning the operation at number fourteen below networks like Absolute, Cake and Microgaming.

In 2007, following a bruising legal encounter over patents with First Technology LLC, Bodog lost control of its original domain names in a $48 million default judgement by United States courts. Calvin Ayre, founder and at that time President signed a deal with Morris Mohawk Gaming Group of Kahnawake, Quebec, giving it the rights to use the Bodog brand to serve consumers throughout North America, while international operations remained in Antigua.

Evidently the company then moved most of its operations from Vancouver to Montreal, a short distance from the Kahnawake First Nation enclave where Morris Mohawk is located. According to Poker News Daily’s source inside Bodog, the new regime lost a lot of quality employees who didn’t wish to make the move from Vancouver.

Now it is claimed again on the basis of allegations by an unnamed insider that in the past week, Bodog had laid off close to 250 employees in Canada, from customer service to management, and staffing levels are down to nearly 200 employees, split equally between Vancouver and Montreal. Advertising management has departed following a suspension in the activities of that division.