Last week, a bill was submitted to the Congress in order to regulate the activity of casinos and sports books in Costa Rica, consisting on a plan promoted by the Finance Ministry as a mechanism to defeat the fiscal deficit.
Some of the proposals included in the bill are:
* 2% tax applied to the monthly gross incomes of the operating centers. This sum will represent approximately one hundred million dollars for the State.
* 0,5% operating canon applied to gross incomes per year
* The creation of Gaming and Betting National Regulatory Commission, which will be in charge of gaming licenses, as well as the corresponding sanctions.
* Every Casino and Betting Center, whether physical or virtual, should keep accounting records, shown to the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Costa Rican Drug Institute, in order to control suspicious transactions and avoid drug trafficking and money laundering.
In the last two decades, at least six more bills of this kind were proposed, but none of them have been approved. Members of the Government consider the present bill will have success, since it seeks to attend taxation priorities.
However, representatives of the Casino Association consider the fact of imposing more taxes to the activity as excessive. They fear that applying two more taxes to gaming activities such as the aforementioned, Costa Rican casinos and sports books might not be able to bear such economic burden.
Mr. Augusto Arce, attorney at law and expert in Gaming Law believes regulating a complex field as the Costa Rica offshore gaming industry is a wiser decision rather than forbidding gaming activities, which bring economic opportunities to Costa Rica as well as a competitive position within other countries. It is important to visualize regulation as the opening for certain benefits, not as an obstacle.
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