Official language: Spanish
Population: 4,133,884
Currency: Costa Rican Colon (CRC)

Current Exchange Rate
1 EUR = 838.0843 CRC
1 GBP = 927.6908 CRC
1 USD = 566.7710 CRC

Sports Betting in Costa Rica
The sportsbook industry in Costa Rica has had a rough and bumpy history. Prior to the 1990s, sportsbooks were unorganized and few in number. The mid 1990s saw a huge boom in the Costa Rican sportsbook industry as major American and European sportsbook companies began moving their operations to take advantage of vague gambling laws and good English speakers in the country. Today, there are hundreds of sportsbooks operating in Costa Rica, and they offer some of the best jobs in the country. Interestingly, most of these operate online, and are not allowed to cater to locals. For Costa Rican players, most of the country's sportsbooks remain unavailable, and betting shops that do cater to locals have recently been subject to changing laws, making it hard for them to stay open.

Online Sports Betting in Costa Rica
Costa Rica also saw the start of some of the first online sportsbooks in the world during the mid 1990s. Today, several hundred internet gambling companies operate out of Costa Rica, offering scores of internet betting sites to punters in every corner of the globe – except for Costa Rica. The local government gives out licenses to companies to let them offer gambling services online, so long as they don't accept local players. Instead, Costa Ricans who wish to bet on sports on the internet must use foreign online sportsbooks. These are similar to the sites run from Costa Rica, they are just operated from other parts of the world. Using these online sportsbooks, Costa Ricans can wager real money on local and world sports events.