Costa Rica online casinos for Real Money

Costa Rica is one of the trickiest countries to wrap your head around if you want to gamble. Despite being the first country to legalise and regulate gambling in the Caribbean (way back in 1886), only state-run gambling is deemed legal in the country. The Junta de Potección de Social has a monopoly in place and governs all forms of gambling. However, despite their remit including lotteries, sports betting, games, video lotteries and other forms of gambling, it is forbidden for residents of Costa Rica to bet.

Despite this seemingly big problem, the land-based casinos in Costa Rica don’t seem to apply the law. In fact, they appear to have some sort of deal with the Ministry of Public Security, where “some Costa Ricans” may slip through the net. However, tourists are the primary aim of Costa Rica’s gambling services.

Costa Rica is a hub for offshore casino sites. However, that deal comes at a cost. Costa Rica has a licensing body that provides gambling licenses to international casinos. This is on the proviso that they do not cater to Costa Ricans, and the body provides little to no regulation of those sites. The low tax rate makes the licensing authority a huge hit with small-scale casinos, but the lack of serious regulation often sees “unfit” casinos gain licenses.

As far as online gambling for Costa Ricans goes, there are grey areas. Officially, gambling online is illegal for Costa Ricans. However, Costa Rica doesn’t technically stop its players from accessing these sites. It is possible for Costa Ricans to visit offshore casinos and gamble, irrespective of the laws. Just don’t expect too many offshore casinos to accept them, particularly those who have obtained licenses from the Caribbean country.

The Junta de Potección de Social has the run over all gambling-related activities in Costa Rica. This is a state-run monopoly, and as mentioned, their services are only technically supposed to be available to foreigners and anybody not living in Costa Rica.

Online gambling licenses cannot be awarded to any operator inside Costa Rica. However, the country has no qualms about dishing out licenses to offshore sites, again, assuming they don’t accept Costa Rican players. To award licenses to offshore casinos to cater to players in other countries (which may also have banned gambling) but not have those sites offer their services to your own players is hypocritical, at the least.

The trouble with the Costa Rican licensing authority is that their licenses are cheap (and easy) to obtain, and there is no real regulation involved – which is always a worry. This puts a Costa Rican license second to only those issued out of Panama as the worst license an operator can contain. Naturally, you aren’t likely to find too many top online casinos licensed out of Costa Rica.

There aren’t many gambling games for Costa Ricans to enjoy. The Costa Rican Gambling Law of 2008 gives a monopoly license to Junta de Potección de Social to offer lottery games. While it does have a framework to offer other types of gambling games, precious few of those exist.

Costa Ricans who decide to gamble at offshore sites tend to take full advantage of the array of games that are available, with everything from slots to table games and sports betting, in particular, being popular. However, as many of these sites are not regulated, there is precious little way of knowing how safe and fair those games are. Many of the games offered are not RNG-certified, which is a cause for concern.

There are a couple of live dealer software providers that have studios based in Costa Rica, even if none of them operates from the country. They include Pragmatic Play, Evolution Gaming and Visionary iGaming. Again, we must stress that these software developers are not Costa Rican and merely use Costa Rican land-based casinos to stream their live games.

Costa Rican casinos (whether land-based or online) are only available to foreigners and those residing outside the country. When it comes to offshore casinos, the same rule applies. Costa Rica does not want its residents to gamble in any way, shape, or form unless they play games run by Junta de Potección de Social, which, as mentioned, are predominantly lotteries. Despite that, Costa Ricans can sign up at offshore casinos and won’t be punished for doing so. However, these sites also accept players from elsewhere, so they are hardly dedicated to players in the country.