SportsBooks Still Taking Bets
Following last weeks arrest of a Betonposrts.com executive and the crusade of U.S. prosecutors against the billions of dollars a year online gambling industry,  business at sportsbooks in Costa Rica remains business as usual.

However, the firms employing thousands of Costa Ricans and foreigners could soon start turning away U.S. gamblers.

The betonsports.com website is still down, telling visitors that the company has temporarily suspended the online operations pending its assessment of its full position.  The company is taking any wagering until the it is in a position to do so.

Many others may soon follow.

Last Monday, U.S. authorities detained David Carruthers, the chief executive of betonsports.com as he changed planes in Dallas, on his way to Costa Rica from England. Carruthers is one of several individuals facing charges of racketeering, conspiracy and fraud under an indictment.

"I think what you'll see is the public companies will stop offering services to Americans," Canadian sports book magnate Calvin Ayre, owner of Costa Rica-based Bodog sportsbook, told Reuters this week.

"We have enough business internationally outside the United States to keep going." 

While betonsports.com is not taking online bets, other book makers remained open for business.

At the fifth-floor offices of Ayre's Bodog call center in San José this week, rows of clerks took wagers over the telephone from bettors calling from around the world.

Although online gaming is not explicitly illegal in the United States, the U.S. Justice Department says it is barred under the U.S. Wire Wager Act.

But hundreds of companies let gamblers in the United States use their credit cards to wager - over the phone or online - on everything from boxing to presidential elections.

Bodog floor manager Jerry Umana said Carruthers' arrest has had little impact among his call center employees, many of them university students attracted by hefty wages.

"We have a product to put out," he said. "We're not going to let it stop our level of operations."

Close to 200 companies employing thousands of people take bets over the telephone in Costa Rica, but the money involved always remains off-shore, said Eduardo Agami, head of the Costa Rican Association of Call and Electronic Data Centers.

Distancing the money from their telephone operators allows Costa Rican bookies to work under laws regulating call centers, leaving the betting element in a legal black hole.