The Morris Mohawk Gaming Group lawsuit is a proposed class action filed in August 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, accusing the Canadian company and three co-defendants of running the Bovada online gambling platform as an illegal enterprise inside Kentucky and seeking to recover players’ losses under a state statute that has already produced a $300 million payout in a separate case.1Class Action. Woods v. Morris Mohawk Gaming Group Et Al. As of February 2026, the case is still tied up in the mechanics of serving foreign defendants, and only one of the four has formally answered the complaint.
What the Complaint Alleges
The named plaintiff is Billi Jo Woods, a resident of Lawrenceburg in Anderson County, Kentucky. She says she lost thousands of dollars in 2023 gambling on bovada.com and bovada.lv, which offer sports betting, slots, poker, and table games to anyone who opens an account and funds it with a credit card or cryptocurrency.1Class Action. Woods v. Morris Mohawk Gaming Group Et Al.
The complaint describes Bovada as an “illegal enterprise” that offers real-money gambling to Kentucky residents in violation of state law. It alleges the defendants cultivated an “aura of legitimacy and legality” by marketing Bovada as a “trusted source for gaming and betting,” leading Woods and other Kentuckians to believe their wagering was lawful.2Class Action. Class Action Claims Bovada, Jumba Bet Online Casino Games Constitute Illegal Gambling in Kentucky The complaint also alleges that despite corporate restructuring over the years, Bovada remains part of Calvin Ayre’s Bodog network, and that Kentucky users who visit Bodog are redirected to bovada.lv.3Poker.org. Bodog-Linked Entities Targeted in Kentucky Class Action
The Kentucky Statute Driving the Case
The lawsuit does not rely on federal racketeering or RICO claims. It rests entirely on Kentucky’s gambling loss recovery statute, KRS § 372.020, which lets anyone who loses $5 or more within a 24-hour period sue the winner to recover the money. Woods also invokes KRS § 372.040, which authorizes treble damages, tripling any recovery.1Class Action. Woods v. Morris Mohawk Gaming Group Et Al.
Kentucky has run this playbook before. The Commonwealth used the same statute against PokerStars’ parent, Flutter Entertainment, over losses by Kentucky residents between 2007 and 2011. That case, filed in 2011, produced a judgment of roughly $290 million in actual damages, and after the Kentucky Supreme Court upheld it, Flutter settled for $300 million in 2021.4WOWK-TV. Kentucky to Receive $300 Million From Online Gambling Lawsuit The Woods complaint points to that outcome as proof the theory works.
Who the Defendants Are
Morris Mohawk Gaming Group is a private Canadian company based in the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in Quebec. It operates as a licensee for the Bodog brand and manages the U.S.-facing Bovada websites, handling product development, customer service, and marketing for the site’s casino, sportsbook, and poker offerings.5GPWA. Morris Mohawk Gaming Group Its founder and CEO is Alwyn Morris.
Calvin Ayre, the Canadian billionaire who founded the original Bodog brand, is also named. Ayre has prior U.S. legal history: a Maryland federal grand jury indicted him in 2012 on charges tied to running an illegal gambling business and money laundering. He resolved that case in July 2017 by pleading guilty to a single misdemeanor count of being an accessory after the fact to illegal gambling transmissions, drawing one year of unsupervised probation, a $500,000 fine, and another $100,000 to reacquire the seized Bodog.com domain. He also agreed not to claim $66 million in previously seized funds that prosecutors said mostly belonged to U.S. gamblers, and the original felony charges were dismissed as part of the deal.6Forbes. Former Online Gambling Billionaire Calvin Ayre Pleads Guilty to Misdemeanor Charge
The fourth defendant is Harp Media BV, a Curaçao corporation the complaint alleges holds an ownership interest in the Bovada websites and collects a share of the revenue.1Class Action. Woods v. Morris Mohawk Gaming Group Et Al. Harp Media has drawn attention from state regulators as well. In February 2025, the Illinois Gaming Board issued a cease-and-desist letter to Harp Media BV, doing business as Bovada, ordering it to stop all unlicensed sports wagering activity in Illinois.7Illinois Gaming Board. Cease and Desist Letter – Harp Media BV Bovada
Who Would Be in the Class and What They Could Recover
The proposed class covers every person in Kentucky who gambled and lost $5 or more within a 24-hour period on bovada.com during the applicable limitations period. The complaint estimates “tens of thousands of consumers” fit that description.1Class Action. Woods v. Morris Mohawk Gaming Group Et Al. The suit asks for compensatory damages, treble damages, an injunction ordering the defendants to stop operating in Kentucky, and attorneys’ fees, and it asserts a judgment exceeding $5 million.3Poker.org. Bodog-Linked Entities Targeted in Kentucky Class Action The class has not been certified.
Where the Case Stands
The case is assigned to Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove, and it has moved slowly because all four defendants are outside the United States.8CourtListener. Woods v. Morris Mohawk Gaming Group
In July 2024, the court denied Woods’s first attempt to serve the defendants by email. For the Morris defendants in Canada, the court held that service had to go through the Hague Convention and that a single failed attempt at personal service was not enough to justify skipping that process. For Harp Media in Curaçao, which is not a Hague Convention country, the court expressed “grave doubt” that emailing a dispute-resolution address satisfied due process, noting no evidence the emails reached anyone authorized to accept legal papers.9GovInfo. Woods v. Morris Mohawk Gaming Group – Opinion and Order
Woods then pursued international judicial assistance. In July 2025, the court granted her request for Letters Rogatory to facilitate service. In November 2025, it approved substituted service on Alwyn Morris through his Kentucky-based attorney. The following month, Judge Van Tatenhove denied Morris’s motion to dismiss, which had argued the court lacked personal jurisdiction over him and that service was insufficient.8CourtListener. Woods v. Morris Mohawk Gaming Group
Morris filed his answer on February 10, 2026, making him the only defendant to formally respond. As of the last docket activity that month, the court was reviewing the status of service on Morris Mohawk Gaming Group, Calvin Ayre, and Harp Media BV, with a telephone conference set for March 25, 2026. No discovery schedule has been entered, and the court has not ruled on the merits of any claim.