Illegal Lotteries Big Business
Anyone who has spent time in Costa Rica, especially in bars and night spots, will have undoubtedbly have seen a person writing on little pieces of paper and exchanging it for colones.

Or at the corner lottery stand, there is exists another type of lottery ticket but is not being shouted out by the sellers as one passes by. That is the "underground" lottery that, according to the authorities, moves millions of colones on a regular basis.

Police have taken action against the sale of the illegal lotteries. However, they can only take action against those vendors who openly sell the illegal lottery on public streets and then only for being a street vendor without a permit and not for the lottery sale.

One underground lottery known as "tiempos" is being soaked by the public and has become a real head Junta de Protección Social (JPS), the government lottery agency.

The JPS estimate that the tiempos alone moves between ¢35 and ¢45 million colones each year or about one half of the JPS budget.

The inaction or better, the lack of will of action, by the JPS has meant a growth for the illegal lottery over the last several years. From the outsider the impression is that the law is doing nothing or willing to do nothing to stop it either.

In areas like Puntarenas, for example, the illegal "tiempos" outsells the legal lottery. The illegal lottery tickets are available right next to the JPS lottery tickets.

In other cases, all the vendor has is a pencil and small piece of paper that begins the dance of chance. For a ¢1.000 colones, the vendor scribbles a number on the piece of paper that can earn the buyer up to ¢70.000 colones. The transaction is simple, fast and the buyer chooses the number.

In bars and nightspots, the game comes to them. Vendors move about the different locations, mingling with th crowd and selling the illegal lottery. Players know who the sellers are and the operators of the games have a reputation of paying every time.

There are also a number of variations to the illegal games, with one thing in common, it is available and the public continues to play.

Some illegal game operators have their own public draw similar to the JPS draws, offering players a chance at the big prize and second and third place prizes. Prizes at these illegal lotteries can pay out as much as 60 times the value of the ticket for the big prize, down to 40 and 20 times for the secondary prizes.

The illegal draws are similar to the JPS draws with tumblers and numbers like the official lottery. All of this occurs on the street and with impunity to the law. One illegal lottery operator, Teodoro Montero, who is considered the creator of the illegal lottery, talked open to local news cameras as they reported one draw for the evening news.

In his case, Montero holds his illegal lottery draws a few metres from the Tribunales de San José (San José court buildings).

Authorities believe that the illegal lotteries is not a simple action of a few but rather are financed by high profile people or organizations known as "banks" that move large amounts of cash in regular business transactions.

These are business people who fund the illegal lottery, covered up by an army of vendors. One operation that the authorities have been investigating has up to 100 vendors and sell up ¢20 million colones in each draw.