TLDR
- Illegal gambling operators now control an estimated 53% of Costa Rica’s lottery and betting market
- Unlicensed platforms drain roughly $300 million per year from the country’s economy
- Lawmakers have introduced Bill 25.600 to modernize the Junta de Protección Social and create real-time monitoring of gambling activity
- The reform would link gambling oversight with financial crime agencies including the Financial Intelligence Unit
- Costa Rica still has no dedicated online gambling licensing system or central gambling regulator
Costa Rica’s government is facing renewed pressure to overhaul its gambling laws after estimates showed that more than half of the country’s betting market is now run by illegal operators.
According to figures presented to President Laura Fernández Delgado’s administration, unlicensed gambling groups control roughly 53% of the market. That activity is believed to drain about $300 million annually from the economy.
The country has no dedicated online gambling licensing system. It also lacks a central gambling regulator.
For years, offshore-facing operators were able to set up companies under ordinary commercial rules. The only condition was that they did not target local players or interfere with the Junta de Protección Social’s state lottery monopoly.
That informal arrangement is now being treated as a liability rather than a workaround.
New Legislation Aims to Close Regulatory Gaps
Lawmakers have introduced legislative file 25.600, a bill designed to strengthen and modernize the JPS. Vice President of the Legislative Assembly Esmeralda Britton has framed the proposal as a way to protect public funds that support social programs.
The bill would introduce real-time monitoring of gambling activity. It also calls for software audits, certification of algorithms, broader transparency requirements and stronger supervision of digital betting operations.
Beyond enforcement, the reform would tie gambling oversight more closely to Costa Rica’s financial crime agencies. The JPS would work with the Financial Intelligence Unit, the Costa Rican Drug Institute and CONASSIF.
That coordination is meant to bring gambling-related financial flows under closer scrutiny.
Officials within the JPS have expressed frustration for some time. They have warned that outdated rules allow illegal platforms to avoid taxes, evade controls and expose minors to gambling.
They have also raised concerns that unregulated gambling flows could be exploited by criminal organizations to move money.
Earlier Reform Effort Failed in Early 2026
The current push follows the failure of a previous attempt at reform. Bill 25.057 advanced through the legislature in late 2025 but was rejected in early 2026.
That setback left the country without a clear path forward on gambling regulation.
The pressure now falls on Fernández Delgado, who took office on May 8 after campaigning on a platform focused on crime. The debate around gambling reform has reopened under her administration.
However, there is still no clear timetable for when new enforcement powers, institutional changes or supervisory systems might take effect.
Costa Rica remains an outlier in Central America. It is a country with an active gambling market but without a dedicated regulatory authority to oversee it.
The current legal framework was built for a different era and was never designed to handle the scale of online betting that now exists.
The $300 million in estimated annual losses from illegal operators continues to flow outside government oversight, away from the social programs the JPS was created to fund.
