How Online Casinos Are Doing Business in Costa Rica

Online casinos are gambling web sites where visitors can play casino games and place bets on sports, celebrities' behaviors, lotteries, and really, just about anything. Some of the online casinos assist their clients over the telephone or e-mail to handle quality assurance.

As of 2000, there were approximately 125 businesses managing online casinos from servers based in Costa Rica. It is difficult to determine how many gaming ventures are in Costa Rica since online casinos are registered as technology corporations, and not as online casinos. They employ about 2,500 Costa Rican citizens (1999 estimate) with salaries ranging between $480.00 and $1,200.00 (1999 estimate) per month. They receive an average of 20 thousand calls per week (1999 estimate) and generate a significant amount of tax-free money.

Online casinos based on servers in Costa Rica are free to do almost anything they want over the Internet as long as they ensure that citizens of Costa Rica or legal permanent residents of Costa Rica do not access their servers to play the games or place a bet.

Online Casinos:

Can host any type of gambling games
Can encourage visitors to place bets on activities or events over the Internet
Do not pay taxes on revenues generated by the gambling business
Can not be held liable for not fulfilling their representations to their customers.

They can do all of the above because:

There are no Internet activity regulations
No citizens and legal permanent residents of Costa Rica access their servers to participate in their games or bets
All transactions are performed through an offshore bank account

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