Why Costa Rica? The hidden benefits of a Costa Rica gambling license

Opening a business and getting a gambling license in Costa Rica

On our page dedicated to the Gambling License in Costa Rica, we spoke about the relatively lenient regulatory regime for gambling businesses in the country. This licensing option is the ultimate pick for those who want to obtain a legal permit fast and without completing a long list of rigorous requirements. With a reliable lawyer by your side, you will open an LLC in Costa Rica and register a local office, register with a tax authority, assign a nominee director, and open a corporate bank account in the blink of an eye.

Most popular activities with a gambling license in Costa Rica 

What’s next? Let us define the scope of possibilities under the gambling license in Costa Rica. 

Gambling & Crypto Gambling

It is important to know that the Costa Rican government prohibits gambling operators from offering services to local citizens. At the same time, the mild regulatory regime makes it possible for gambling companies to achieve an international reach. Apart from the general licensing requirements, the future entrepreneur must not forget to make agreements with gambling providers in order to list games and other products on the platform legally. 

GameFi 

The number of legal entities registered in Costa Rica has skyrocketed with the spread of GameFi across the international market. Combining gambling and crypto, this business model has a doubled potential of gathering a huge clientele. The majority of jurisdictions licensing gambling platforms are poorly acquainted with the importance of proper legal compliance for GameFi, but Costa Rica is not the case. 

In fact, lots of modern GameFi startups are licensed in Costa Rica for the same simple reason: its lenient legal framework that gives crypto gaming business owners free rein in running their companies as long as they comply with a very basic set of requirements. 

As for the crypto element, it is always possible to license your GameFi project or crypto casino both ways, either by obtaining a Costa Rica crypto license in addition to the gambling permit or studying other crypto regulators with similar licensing procedures. All of these steps create a calm, harmonious, and, most importantly, compliant ecosystem for running a GameFi platform. 

Benefits of Costa Rica over other jurisdictions

There are several jurisdictions that have been actively licensing gambling businesses over the past few years. Why give up the time-tested options and switch to something new, you may ask? For comparison, we present to you our own professional assessment of the Costa Rica gambling license through the prism of its comparison with other popular jurisdictions. 

Costa Rica VS Curacao

A Curacao license is not a novelty in the international gambling business. Almost every gambling platform out there is registered and licensed on the island, which hardly makes the trustworthiness of some platforms stand out compared to their competitors. 

Compared to Curacao, Costa Rica has a noticeably shorter list of requirements: it does not require applicants to conduct a profound market analysis to find out the target countries and audiences for the platform or run tedious data management procedures. While all of these processes are certainly important and legally valuable, the Costa Rican licensing authority checks the compliance of applicants in other, simpler and quicker ways. 

Costa Rica VS Malta 

Malta has a noticeably broader and more detailed legal framework than Costa Rica when it comes to gambling licenses. There are 4 types of licenses, each designated for a specific business model and with its own share capital requirement that can go as high as €100,000.

Since Malta is a Member State of the European Union, the gambling license from the Malta Gaming Authority is considered a prestigious and trustworthy legal permit for online casinos. At the same time, the licensing requirements are way more rigorous, especially in the wake of the recent MiCA regulation of the EU, which can complicate the licensing process for gambling businesses planning to integrate crypto payments into their systems. 

Long story short, while the trustworthiness of the Malta license is hard to overestimate, not every entrepreneur, especially a beginner one, is ready to meet the entirety of Maltese compliance regulations, which can be quite rigid. 

Costa Rica VS Anjouan 

Anjouan is a famous offshore licensing option for gambling businesses. The Anjouan Betting and Gaming Board (ABGB) allows the licensing of such business models as online casinos, sports betting, bingo, eSports, and more, but the position toward GameFi and other crypto-related gambling projects remains unclear. 

As for the licensing of casino platforms, the requirements are considerably more detailed compared to Costa Rica: licensees are required to pay an annual licensing fee to the regulatory authority apart from possessing an initial share capital of €250.000, as well as submit a number of obligatory corporate documents, like the company strategy, proof of domain ownership (which is also relevant for Curacao), and RNG testing certificates. 

All of these requirements can slow down the license obtainment process, which, of course, can be avoided with the assistance of LegalBison. Nevertheless, Costa Rica remains a leading option in terms of the speed and ease of the licensing process. 

Interested in obtaining a Costa Rica gambling license?

Everything is in your hands, but we will be glad if you pass it on to ours. After studying our dedicated page, you can contact LegalBison’s team of lawyers directly and commence the licensing process in Costa Rica. In addition to the benefits explained in this post, we will assess your particular project case and point out additional advantages you can reap from starting an online casino or a GameFi in Costa Rica.