The Devil’s bargain that Costa Rica has made with the sportsbooks is beginning to unravel, but so far the government has not taken any action.

In order to generate thousands of jobs, sportsbooks have been treated gently by official Costa Rica, even to the extent that any effort to really regulate them fails in the Asamblea Legislativa.

Now there is pressure from the United States, which has the power to lock out most of the gambling activities from that country which arrives here via telephones and Internet.

For many years, the sportsbooks have lived above the law. They pay little in taxes. The last major tax-writing effort at the Asamblea Legislativa basically exempted sportsbooks from an income tax in exchange for a flat $50,000 annual fee. The bill did not become law, but clearly sportsbooks had friends among the legislators.

The chief executive of BetonSports… still is in jail in the United States, and the company has shut down its Web sites. The bulk of the employees have been furloughed, and many wonder if they will get their severance pay, as required by Costa Rican law.

Many companies, including call center operators, have ducked out of town under cover of darkness without paying what the law requires.

Of course, that does not count social security payments for the legions of young North Americans who work at the sportsbooks illegally. Even David Carruthers, the jailed chief executive, was reported running a company here with up to 2,000 employees while he was on a tourist visa. Tourists are not suppose to work.

Carruthers could easily have obtained a work permit on the strength of his job with BetonSports…, but he appears to have declined to do so.

There is no secret that some sportsbooks provide magical updates of tourist visas for their employees. No trip outside the country. No lengthy visit to immigration. The visa renewal stamp just suddenly appears in the passports.

Costa Rican officials might be hesitant to take any action because the last effort to look into the business of a sportsbook was a public relations disaster.

Security ministry agents raided the Santa Ana compound of Calvin Ayre, founder of Bodog,com in March. They expected to find illegal gambling: A made-for-television poker tournament in progress.
The event was a cocktail party, and raiding agents were only able to find Ayre’s armed bodyguards. Unlike others in violation of Costa Rican law, they were asked to leave the country. They returned not long after.

The real tournament was being conducted at the studios of Channel 7, Teletica, and officials have yet to provide a reasonable answer why they did not visit the television station whose executives have substantial political pull.

Although sportsbooks are supposed to register at the Ministerio de Economía, there is no inspection program. Bettors who call on the telephone or contact the firms via the Internet are relying on the honesty and goodwill of the company. That’s why the Internet is active with complaints from bettors who feel they have not been treated fairly.

In some cases, online casinos other than Bodog or BetonSports have been known to forget to pay big winners. The bettors have no recourse except to complain.

BetonSports has ended up in bad company in another way. A year ago, New York and federal officials busted a $360 million gambling operation linked to the mob and to a sportsbook in Costa Rica.  It turns out the sportsbook, being used as a virtual wireroom for persons linked to the Bonanno Mafia crime family, according to New York officials, was part of the BetonSports operation, using the name Safe Deposit Sports. The administrative contact for safedeposit… was Pablo Quiros Valenciano, who has a betonsports… e-mail address, according to a lookup of the Safe Deposit Internet domain.

Push may come to shove if the United States moves to extradite Gary Kaplan. He was named in an indictment along with Carruthers. If Kaplan still is in Costa Rica, a U.S. warrant will have to be ratified by a judge here. In addition to taking bets, which is legal here, the indictment alleges fraud and money laundering. A judge likely would sign a local arrest warrant and leave it up to Kaplan to fight the U.S. government case in an extradition hearing.

The situation may never come to that. Kaplan has been reported looking for another country that would welcome his operation.

The Óscar Arias Sánchez campaign promised a crackdown on corruption. And the ball is now in the president’s court as to whether rampant visa fraud and other possible illegalities will be investigated and whether reasonable consumer protection regulations will be drafted for sportsbooks and online casinos.