If the Government has it their way, they will take a 2% piece of the action in all gambling income
Costa Rica has always been very lax on gambling. In reality it only took a business license and just about anyone could open up a casino. And with the US crack down on betting in 2007 hordes of online gambling and bookie businesses flooded Costa Rica.
About every two to 3 years the government ties to put a new novel plan to generate revenue from these establishments. The last one (about 1 and 1/2 years ago) there were requirements of how many slots, blackjack tables etc a hotel could have based on the amount of rooms they had. Gambling casinos were also required to set their operation back X amount of feet back from the sidewalk and blab blab blab.
Each time their efforts have fails.
This is almost a sure bet that you could see this coming, the government is following in La Vegas footsteps where they are now proposing another bill to regulate gambling and to tax gross income.
Now what this means, all the money customers place on bets, even if the gambling company pays out a lot of money in winnings. A 2% percentage rate is proposed that will generate about $100 million in revenue to the government.
Needless to say, this is causing quite a bit of alarm to many major casinos like the Whitehouse and to major online betting websites like Bodog and BetUS.
The government also claims this is to also help prevent scams in which big winnings never are paid, protect foreign bettors who have no recourse if they get scammed and to prevent those linked to organized crime in the United States and other money laundering operations.
A newly formed commission, Comisión Nacional Reguladora de Apuestas y Juegos de Azar would now regulate betting and provide a supervisory authority within the commission supervise All online gambling activities.
To put it bluntly, for the first time, gambling establishments will have to disclose of how much money they are making, so the government can get their piece of the pie.
Obviously, this will have a major impact on the gambling industry and society in general because betting operations would have to provide information about their investors and managers. The law (they say) is designed to generate public confidence in the gambling business to avoid suspicions that the companies are covers for illegal activities. The bill would not affect the Junta de Protección Social, which runs the nation’s lotteries, nor the Cruz Roja, which uses bingo to raise funds.
Even if the adult business of prostitution in Costa Rica is legal (both gay and heterosexual) some gambling places this is their primary business and the bill will help control this by regulating the the hours of operation, particularly in the San Jose area were as many as 4-6 operate in one block and do not cater to tourists or expats but to the Costa Rican working man.
However, the proposed bill faces some technical problems mostly because the current law is very lucrative for the country. Since online companies are mobile, where brick and mortar casinos are not, much of the online money collected goes into offshore accounts, which the government would not be able to tax or have a hard time doing it.
Many companies are already establishing contingency plans to seek more friendly venues (like moving out of country) thus laying off 1000s of Costa Ricans if the govenment tries to squeeze them for taxes.
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