Joined: Jan '08
Location: Croatia
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 1308
sorry for copy/pastet but there are links that are not allowed.
MUST READ FOR ALL
While the Central American country Costa Rica is home to more than 200 online gambling companies, it does not actually have legislation specifically designed to deal with gambling over the Internet. The Costa Rican government is of the opinion that the act of wagering does not take place at the location of the operator's gaming servers, so companies residing in the country are able to legally offer Internet wagers to customers all over the world as long as they refuse to accept wagers from individuals located in Costa Rica.
Because of the absence of legislation dealing with online gambling, the businesses and operations of Costa Rica-based gaming companies are not subject to the regulations, monitoring, and testing to which most offshore governments subject their licensees. MOST COMPANIES ARE SELF-REGULATED. Because there is no official regime to recognize license holders, there is no betting or gaming tax. Instead, companies operate under a "data processing" license.
In September 2007, the Partido Accion Ciudadana introduced a bill that would tax sportsbooks and other electronic betting operations based on the number of employees on their payroll. The annual tax begins at firms with 10 employees with a fee of 10 million colons or $19,200 a year and reaches the top of the scale with a tax of 28.4 million colons($54,600) for companies with more than 61 employees.
This proposal is the latest in what has been a long and mostly fruitless attempt on the part of the government to tax the betting industry.
The Arias administration is also seeking to set a licensing scheme in place that would require online casinos and sportsbooks to register with the Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Comercio.
So to cut it short, they are companies which are not regulated and don`t have any license at all, at least not for gambling. No regulations and no assurances that games are fair and that players get paid.
end of article
There are currently 221 sites operating from Costa Rica so look where are they registered before depositing. If site is hiding where it is registered perhaps the best place to start looking is in T&C under "Governing law" or something like that section, usually the last section in T&C.
Joined: May '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 869
Very few of those 221 are poker site about 95% are sports betting sites, a number of the biggest poker sites are based in CR, sometime things like the above make me laugh the are so very one sided.
Joined: Jan '08
Location: Croatia
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 1308
Posted by IceMan8: pokerstars is in costa rica...
Don`t post things that are not truth and could be easily checked. Here is combined screenshot of Poker stars and Full Tilt licenses. EDIT: Screenshot is at the bottom
I`ll put list of the sites registered there, since I can`t put screenshot for several reasons give me some time to write it manually.
LIST OF ALL SITES REGISTERED AND OPERATING UNDER SO CALLED COSTA RICA LICENSE:
#1 Cyber Sport Betting #1 Sportbetting Sportsbook #1 Sportbook Sport Betting 10CardBingo 123Bingo.com 1776 Bingo 1Bet2Bet.com 1st Access Sportsbook 1st Approved Sports Betting 1st Betting Sportsbook 1st Lines 1st Vegas Internet Casino 2Bet Poker 32Deck 5 Stars Casino 5Dimes Casino and Sportsbook 724Sports.com 7Spins 8 Black Club A Total Sportsbet A Total Sportsbook Aarons Sport Betting ABC Islands Casino and Sportsbook Action Bets Aero Player Casino All Bet Sportsbook All-SportsBetting.com All-Sportsbook American Football Betting Arctic Star Poker At Las Vegas Casino Autobet Badlands Casino & Sportsbook Baseball Sports Betting One Bella Bingo Belle Grande Bet Any Sports Bet Canadian Bet Cascade Bet Eagle Bet on Fighting Bet on Sports Online Bet Top Cat Bet$ Gone Wild Bet247Usa Bet33 betboo.com BetCRIS Casino BetCRIS Poker BetCRIS Sportsbook betEd.com BetGold Casino BetMax Casino BetOnLow BetPlatinum Sportsbook, Racebook & Casino BetPOP.com PayOffsPlus BetSportsWeb Betting247.com Big Time Bingo Bikini Poker Bingo Charm Bingo Comics Bingo Diner Bingo Flash Bingo Fun House Bingo Gang Bingo House Bingo Knights Bingo Millionaire Bingo Oasis Bingo Palace Bingo Tide Bingo.se Bingonanza.co.uk BingoWorkz BiziPoker3D Blast 21 Blue1Bingo Book the Bet Bookmaker Casino Bookmaker Poker Bookmaker Sportsbook Carlos Place Casino Carlos Poker Casino City Casino City Online Casino Extreme Casino Lobby Casino Millionaire Casino Mission Impossible Casino Solera Casino Webcam Casino-Broceliande.com Cirrus Casino Cirrus CasinoUK Cloud Casino Club Games Club Player Casino Come Play Contessa Casino Cool Cat Casino Desperate Housewives Bingo Desperate Housewives BingoUK Diamond Sportsbook International Dionysus Casino Dream&Win Dreams Casino DSI Poker eHorseX.com Enterbet.com Extreme Sportsbetting.com EZ Online Casino EZ Sports Betting Online Fair N` Square Bingo Football Sports Betting Online Galaxy Sports Gamblers Palace Games 4 Money Get a Bet Casino & Sportsbook Gold Room Poker Golden Star Casino GoTo Entertainment Guardian Guaranty Sportsbook & Casino Heritage Sports Hollywood Int`l Sportsbook and Casino Ibet Casino & Sportsbetting iNetBet Casino Instant Action Sports Island Casino ItsReal iwager.com Jazz Casino and Sportsbook JustBet.com Sportsbook & Casino King Fish Las Palmas Sportsbook & Casino Las Vegas Jackpot Las Vegas USACasino Lee Poker Less Juice Live Vegas Action LiveGambler Loose Lines Casino and Sportsbook M&M Sports Major Sports Betting MamaMia Poker Maria Bingo Maria Casino Money Magic Online Casino Money Plays Casino Monte Casino NetClub Casino New York City Casino No1Poker.com NordicBet Omni Sportsbook OnlineBingo.com Orchid Casino Palace of Chance Panther Poker Parlay Cardz Pharaoh`s Casino Poker Piazza Poker Shootout Prism Casino Pro Football Lines and Odds Racing Sports Betting Ready2Bet.com Rois Casino Rome Casino SBG Global Sportsbook Sci Fi Casino Shark Casino Skybook Slot Fever Casino Slots Village Sportbet Sportsbook Lobby Sportsbookhaven Sportsbookhigh.com Star Club Poker Suite 332 Sun Palace Casino Superbowl Sports Gambling Online T6 Poker Texas Casino The Pig The Virtual Casino Tombstone Online Poker Tops Casino Touchdown Sports Betting Online Triobet Triple Gold Casino True Poker Turbosportsbetting.com USA Bingo USA Sports Betting Lines Vegas 24 Vegas Casino Online Vegas Gold Poker Vegas Lucky Vegas Magic Casino Vegas Sports Betting Vegas Sportsbook and Casino Vegas Strip Casino Vegas007 VegasNet Casino VietBet Wager 7.com Wager Web WagerPoint Wasa Poker Wave Bingo Winward Casino World 3D Poker World Bet Sportsbook World Wide Vegas World Wide Win Casino XP Poker YaBet Yachting Casino YouWager
Disclaimer: I did not have the time to check all of the sites, some of them might have changed the software provider or license recently and they should not be here, but I doubt that is the case. If anyone is interested I`ll make software provider breakdown of the same database.
Joined: Sep '07
Location: Sweden
Age: 48 (M)
Posts: 244
There is always a risk involved when playing online. We have read in numerous forums posts here how Casinos locks accounts and dont want to pay out winnings. When it comes to poker I have to say its kind of safe gambling. The poker sites dont have to risk any money of their own as long as they dont give out A lots of No deposit bonuses like Duplicate. Since Online pokerrooms make their money on rake and not on gambling and they can attract players who acctually plays at the real cash tables they are sure to make a profit.. And the money ppl deposits is tied up in real accounts they cant go broke Because the money People have deposited is less then the actual money that are in every account due to rake. Dont mather were they have their license.
Joined: Jan '08
Location: Croatia
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 1308
Posted by kingpapet: There is always a risk involved when playing online. We have read in numerous forums posts here how Casinos locks accounts and dont want to pay out winnings. When it comes to poker I have to say its kind of safe gambling. The poker sites dont have to risk any money of their own as long as they dont give out A lots of No deposit bonuses like Duplicate. Since Online pokerrooms make their money on rake and not on gambling and they can attract players who acctually plays at the real cash tables they are sure to make a profit.. And the money ppl deposits is tied up in real accounts they cant go broke Because the money People have deposited is less then the actual money that are in every account due to rake. Dont mather were they have their license.
Sorry but You are missing the point here. These sites DONT HAVE gambling license at all. They operate under laws like normal businesses, same as bakery or cafe bar. They don`t have to obey any of the restrictions required from, lets say Kahnawake regulated sites or Malta. They don`t have to prove that their RNG is really random or fair, they don`t have the obligation at all, at least not explicitly stated, that winning must be payed to players, etc.
Joined: May '08
Location: France
Age: 61 (F)
Posts: 2
that's true, pokerstars isn't in costa rica but on the isle of man, sorry for that. But i made a deposit on pokerstars last year and my money was send to costa rica.
Joined: May '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 869
Posted by IceMan8: that's true, pokerstars isn't in costa rica but on the isle of man, sorry for that. But i made a deposit on pokerstars last year and my money was send to costa rica.
IceMan8 your first post is correct they are in Costa Rica.
Joined: Jan '08
Location: Croatia
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 1308
IceMan8 your first post is correct they are in Costa Rica.
But i made a deposit on pokerstars last year and my money was send to costa rica.
I don`t know why Your money was sent to Costa Rica, perhaps because they have offshore bank account.
This is about misleading statement from those sites saying they are regulated by Costa Rica and there are no regulations related to gambling. They operate under data exchange laws. POKER STARS, FULL TILT AND ACTION POKER HAVE GAMBLING LICENSES, Poker stars holding Isle of Man gambling license, Full Tilt and Action Poker holding Kahnawake gambling license. Both Isle of Man and Kahnawake license demand certain level of game integrity and fairness from licensees. All those sites mentioned above don`t have to obey such rules and it is in their good faith that they will maintain fairness of their games or will they respect someone`s winnings.
Joined: Mar '08
Location: Australia
Age: 49 (M)
Posts: 1158
thats the risk of online poker or any gambling where you are using software.it can never be totally random cauz its a programm,play for fun,enjoy it and hope you dont get ripped of,easy,and if you make some money,good onya.
Joined: Jan '08
Location: Croatia
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 1308
Posted by scl1975: thats the risk of online poker or any gambling where you are using software.it can never be totally random cauz its a programm,play for fun,enjoy it and hope you dont get ripped of,easy,and if you make some money,good onya.
In different thread I would agree 100% with you but here I will agree 90%, these sites are more dangerous than other. If you look at the list you will find many sites and recognizable are very few of them. And those you heard of probably have long history of bad business practices such as not paying out winners for numerous reasons and there is no overseeing commission to offer at least some sense of security.
Joined: Mar '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 6714
Very intresting thread, some may just laught at it, but I like to play a site that has to conform to laws and regulations, I would only be creating a risk for myself by choosing a site that can basicall do what they want, im sure most of the sites listed are fine but just like in poker ill take a calculated risk and stick to what i know.
