Editorial: Costa Rica...The online Las Vegas?

Back in the 1990's when the Internet was first gaining in popularity and was finally starting to exhibit the technology necessary to reliably support live games, a light bulb flickered in the heads of a few gambling entrepreneurs.

Las Vegas was wildly popular at the time, as was its east coast counterpart Atlantic City and international destinations like Monte Carlo. There could be no doubt that the future of live gambling was solid, but what about the people that couldn't afford to travel cross-country to play their favorite games? Or what about the people that wanted to play more often...like right now? Online gambling offered an obvious solution, and thus in 1995 the first online casino was born and history was made.

Costa Rica By early 1996 there were three online casinos competing for a rapidly growing audience. In 1998, Planet Poker introduced the first online poker room which was soon followed by Poker Stars. A majority of early patrons to online gambling were American, and yet none of these operations were based in the United States. Why?

Prohibitive legislation in the United States (legislation that would only get worse in 2007 with the passing of the UIGEA) made it virtually impossible to host a legal casino online in the U.S. Because of their close proximity to America, the Caribbean islands seemed like an obvious choice for offshore operations, and over the years Costa Rica has emerged as an ideal locale for online gambling businesses.

Today, Costa Rica plays host to hundreds of online casinos and poker rooms. What makes this beautiful country an obvious choice for online gambling? Initially it was its convenient location in relation to the U.S., but as online gambling has become more of an international pastime that benefit has become less relevant. The country's long history of live gambling certainly helps, but Costa Rica offers so much more than history and location. What really makes it the best of the best in the Caribbean islands is its widespread, reliable technology, educated workforce, and online gambling-friendly government.

When the U.S. government tried to manhandle Costa Rica's online casino industry, Costa Rica stood its ground. In fact, it fired back by filing an arbitration application with the World Trade Organization. While the WTO did not allow Costa Rica to reverse the UIGEA's effect on American players, it did support Costa Rica's right to host online gambling establishments. The country has virtually no restrictions on online gambling and as a result has become a haven for gambling industry figures seeking to avoid legal ramifications in the U.S.

Las Vegas profits from tourism on several levels, but no one's flying into Costa Rica to play at their online casinos. Amidst all the controversy surrounding what constitutes legal casino operations, what's in it for Costa Rica? The answer is A LOT!

The online gambling industry has directly created at least 10,000 jobs in Costa Rica while supplementing other related industries like telecommunications, software development, web design and construction. The online gambling industry generates tens of billions of dollars in revenue every year, and Costa Rica's share is significant (though they'd like to make it more significant by creating a gaming tax).

In these unsure economic times, online gaming has not only remained stable but in several areas continues to grow. This makes Costa Rica's Caribbean monopoly on online casinos a valuable asset; one we are sure the country will continue to cultivate and protect.

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22-Jun-2009, 22:12

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