- Morris Mohawk Gaming Group
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Morris Mohawk Gaming Group Type Private Industry Online Gaming Founded 2006, Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada Headquarters Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada Key people Alwyn Morris, CEO Products Online casino, sportsbook, poker room Revenue Not available Employees Approximately 210 (2008) Website http://www.morrismohawk.ca/ The Morris Mohawk Gaming Group (MMGG) is an online gambling company best known for its “Bodog”-branded website, www.bodog.eu. The MMGG site maintains an online sports and racebook, an online casino and an online poker room.
A private company, the MMGG is headquartered in the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake in Quebec, Canada – part of the seven communities that make up the Mohawk Nation. The MMGG operates pursuant to a remote gaming license issued by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, and is authorized by that license to offer gaming services worldwide.
The MMGG is led by its CEO Alwyn Morris, a member of the Mohawk nation in Kahnawake, and recipient of Order of Canada, the highest order that can be bestowed upon a Canadian civilian.
According to a 2009 interview with CEO Alwyn Morris, following the passage of anti-online gambling legislation by the U.S. Congress in 2006, the original, Antigua-based Bodog gaming enterprise resolved to withdraw from the U.S. market. Seizing upon the opportunity, the MMGG then approached Bodog and negotiated an exclusive license to use the brand for the purposes of marketing the MMGG's online gaming services within that region.
Canada's Macleans magazine, in a 2007 article and interview with CEO Morris[1], spoke to Morris regarding the decision to license the Bodog brand and operate the MMGG's online site from Kahnawake, characterizing the decision as wading "into the heart of a billion-dollar legal standoff" and while it was "a business that Ottawa considers patently illegal", concluded that "for now, though, the legal threat from Quebec and Canada seems to be as empty as can be."
Domain Names
The MMGG originally licensed the www.bodog.com domain from Bodog as an element of their brand license arrangements, but this domain name was seized in September 2007 during a patent dispute between one of Bodog’s domain management suppliers and a company named 1st Technology LLC.
In April 2009, the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group, though not a party to the litigation, settled the case with 1st Technology, acquired all of the seized domains, and returned its website to the original www.bodog.com domain.
On May 23, 2011 the group announced its intention to allow its license agreement with BodogBrand.com for the Bodog.com domain to expire and that it had migrated its services to www.Bodog.eu. Alwyn Morris commented on the transition to the new domain, indicating that that the .EU domain would "appeal more directly to the new markets we plan to enter".
References
Categories:- Gambling companies of Canada
- Online gambling companies
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