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Gaming

Gaming has been a staple in the Costa Rican economy for many years now providing jobs to at least 10,000 workers. Costa Rica for many years now has been a mecca for gaming activities due to its legality, the Costa Rican government's openess to this type of e-/commerce, and Costa Rican tax incentives. In Costa Rica, these types of operations are attracted because there are fewer regulations to comply with and those that actually do exist are not really enforced...

Gaming has certainly made for big business, a multi million dollar one. There are an estimated 200 known sportsbooks, or online betting services operating out of Costa Rica. These facilities are quite impressive "machines" if you get the chance to work in one or see one in operation. They are made up of rows and rows of workers at tiny terminals, speaking into headsets, tables and TVs with every sport imagiable playing and managers wandering from worker to worker assisting or making sure everything runs smooth. Inbound callers are from all over the world and speak a variety of different languages as do many of the employees.

There are also tons of casinos. Although gaming has been an important part of the Costa Rican economy it has negative undertones with the general population. This is in part because many of the owners have been caught using these businesses to help cover up illegal activities such as money laundering and even one of the owners was linked to mob activity in New York. Sportsbooks also have the reputation of trying to exploit their employees, and many employees also have been known to get into some pretty heavy drugs due to the enviroment, and because they are making very decent wages here.

Currently, the sportsbooks have been under a lot of pressure from the US government that is trying to target them by saying that if they are receiving monies from US Citizens then they should be held liable to pay certain US taxes and that their operations therefore fall under jurisdiction of US laws. Despite recent US legislation aimed at prohibiting credit card and electronic fund transactions, most sportbooks remain strong.

Surprisingly enough, gaming has been one of the only industries that really has not been too negatively affected by the global economic crisis.

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