Online gambling and betting executives from around the world were in Costa Rica on Tuesday to consider new payment options for their US$4 billion industry after US credit card companies pulled the plug on the party.
The industry was rocked by the decisions by US-based Visa, Marter Card and PayPal not to process further betting transactions, organizer Marc Lesnick told local media.
Some 200 industry leaders from Israel, South Africa, Canada, the US, Australia, Britain, Belgium and Germany are here looking into alternatives, according to the Costa Rica-based Lesnick.
The Central American country of Costa Rica has become one of the main centers of the e-gambling business.
There are now about 150 betting centers or "sportbooks" here at which an estimated 7,000 young people are employed, many of them university students who make US$4-US$8 per hour.
"Now is when there could be mafia [involvement] and money laundering because Visa and MasterCard had the keys to control all this and they are handing them over. They are leaving an enormous void and will cause money to be laundered," Lesnick told the Al Dia newspaper.
Some of the Costa Rica-based operations recently have been linked by media reports to New York-based mafia, but they continue to operate.
Asked about the industry summit, the head of the National Association of Public and private Employees, Albino Vargas, warned of the potential for Costa Rica to become a money-laundering center.
"It seems that this event has taken the country by surprise," Vargas said.
"We Costa Ricans are unaware of the extent to which we are becoming a sort of tax haven for all kind of legal and illegal business without the state taking due note of what is going on," Vargas said.
"Costa Rica may have started down the path of becoming a financial center open to business that due to its nature is a potential draw for illegal funds, such as those from drug trafficking," he added.
Vargas charged "the situation is even graver in terms of companies that are set up in Costa Rica which must maintain domestic ties, powerful relationships and even political support" from certain parties.
He urged the legislature to investigate the industry "in the interest of the moral wellbeing of the republic."
"Political parties have fallen short, have been irresponsibly naive and looked the other way" as the e-gaming operations, banned in the US and many other countries, took root and grew, he said.
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