Toughening of Online Casinos Regulations
A new Costa Rican Tourism Minister means some new severe restrictions on the
land gambling industry in the nation. Costa Rica is currently home to many land
resort casinos and is the home-base for several American-facing online casinos
gambling companies, and new regulations and restrictions on the industry could
have a negative impact on internet gambling operations as well. Costa Rica has
previously fostered a fairly unregulated and certainly unenforced land and
online casinos gambling environment, but the new Tourism Minister has plans for
a total overhaul of the country’s gambling industry, and the land casinos are
under scrutiny to start.
Tourism Minister Carlos Ricardo Benavides commented recently on the new gambling
structure for the country, noting that the country has no intention of becoming
a land nor online casinos gambling Mecca. Benavides noted that there are already
several areas in the world that specifically cater to large resorts to nurture
land gambling and strict licensing and regulations that support online casinos
gambling. Costa Rica on the other hand plans to fall into neither of these
categories and instead run a moderate land gambling industry that adheres to
stringent restrictions.
The online casinos gambling companies based out Costa Rica are worried that
Minister Benavides plans to turn the eye of scrutiny onto the internet gambling
companies once finished with the land gambling industry. Some of the new
restrictions in place for the land casinos and resorts include limited hours of
operation for the casino portion of the hotels and resorts – a maximum of eight
hours a day as opposed to the current 24 hour structure. Added to that are new
restrictions on giving away free alcohol, and restrictions on the percentage of
casino floor space to hotel space. |