Can Online Gambling Be Safely Regulated?

In Costa Rica, online gambling is officially illegal. There are online gambling companies which are based in the country and offer betting on casino and sportsbook markets to people located abroad, but no online gambling firm can legally take bets from Costa Rica’s residents. Now, with a wave of online gambling regulation sweeping across northern and southern America, in this article we ask whether it is time for Costa Rica to regulate this popular pastime.

New Regulated Markets – The US, Canada, Peru and Brazil

In the past five years, huge changes have been taking place in the regulation of gambling both online and offline in the American continent. The most obvious example is in the States, where following the repeal of PASPA (Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act) at the federal level in 2018, after years of prohibition, individual states have been allowed to set their own rules to permit gambling online and offline. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York and West Virginia are amongst those to license gambling now and many more are expected to follow, including California in the next 12 to 24 months.

Further north, in Canada, online gambling has recently been made legal in Ontario, the first province to regulate the pastime and allow private betting operators to compete with state- run lottery companies.

Meanwhile, in the Southern American countries, online gambling remains largely unregulated with governments allowing their citizens to gamble on offshore sites but yet to impose a legal framework of their own under which licenses could be issued and taxes earned. The exceptions to this rule include Brazil, which is currently going through the process of establishing gambling laws and issuing licenses, and Peru, which recently set out the basic structure of regulation that would include a 12% tax on revenues.

Source: https://qcostarica.com/can-online-gambling-be-safely-regulated/