In one afternoon legislators on Capitol Hill pulled the rug from right underneath the tycoons behind successful online casino sites in the United States.

This week the BBC caught up with one of those billionaires to return to earth with a painful bang.

Calvin Ayre, founder of Bodog.com, one of the world’s most lucrative sites explained how the new prohibitive laws in the States are affecting big business.

Once a successful billionaire the 45 year old Canadian owns a multimillion dollar home in Costa Rica which is complete with guard house, high-tech surveillance, and secret panic room. He is flanked by servants, and burly security guards drive him around in bullet-proof Hummers.
 
However the latest Forbes magazine ‘rich list’ shows Ayres is no longer a billionaire.
His wealth was dragged down by the new US laws prohibiting transactions between American financial institutions and online gambling sites.
 
Gambling websites and their owners have fallen on hard times.
 
One of the largest online gambling sites, Betonsports, has shut down its US market operations, and the US Department of Justice has charged its executive David Carruthers with criminal racketeering and wire fraud.
 
Peter Dicks, a non-executive director of another British company Sportingbet, was also arrested as he landed on US soil although all the warrants against him and his company have now been cancelled.
 
With the US being the largest online gambling market in the world, many companies lost more than half their business, with some losing as much as 80%.
 
Calvin Ayre refuses to disclose the revenues currently generated by his online gambling arm.
 
He argues that Bodog's brand - which includes an international music label, a publishing division and a television production unit - will differentiate his firm from competitors.
"Once you know Bodog, you know me and what I represent," he says, "so there is a bold concept about what Bodog stands for."
 
"Gamblers will gamble, and the Internet allows for the highest levels of access to that desired form of entertainment," he says.
 
"It is never going away. Ever.
 
"I think people like us are going to be combining that entertainment opportunity with other forms of entertainment and I think that is the model of the future, but it is not going away."

Like all good businessmen Ayre has already planned for ways of regaining billionaire status soon and judging by his success to date there no reason why he won’t make a return to the Forbes Rich List again.