3,000 to 4,000 Casino Workers May Lose Their Jobs

April 18

By Elise Sonray
of the A.M. Costa Rica staff

From 3,000 to 4,000 casino workers will lose their jobs if the new government decrees become official, said a member of the casino association.

Most casino owners are not mad about the new government decrees just worried, said Adriana Campos, the manager of Concorde Casinos. Among other things, the new decrees released by the Ministerio de Justicia y Gracia and Casa Presidencial, say that casinos can be open only from  6 p.m. to 2 a.m. That's only eight hours a day. For 24-hour casinos, this translates as major losses.

“So many people depend on the workers. The women who work here have sons and daughters,” said Ms. Campos, who is a member of the Asociación de Casinos. Concorde Casinos has 150 employees alone in its San José casino at the Irazú Best Western, said Ms. Campos. That does not include their casino in the Double Tree Hilton.

“We are totally in regulation with the current casino laws,” said Ms. Campos, referring to association members. She said she had no problem with the regulation that casinos must be inside of hotels, because that was current law. “The only real problem is the scheduling,” she said.

As to why the government decided to do this now, Ms. Campos said it seemed to her that it was to block the new Russian company, Storm International, from entering the country. “We think it was very abrupt, an emergency decision,” she said of the government's decrees. There were already similar laws awaiting in the legislature, she added, but this was very fast, an emergency plan of action.

“People are very scared of this situation,” she said, referring to how the government feels about the Russian company. 

The governments feelings about the foreign company, which plans to invest $5 million to refurbish a downtown hotel, are no secret. In late  February La Nación quoted Laura Chinchilla, minister of justice and vice president, as saying, “This news makes me sick. They are not welcome. It's as simple as that.” Storm International's proposal would just meet the decreed requirements. The project will include a 60-room hotel, said the company at the time they made the proposal.
 
Ms Campos said she knew little about the company, but that in general casinos are looked down upon. “People have a bad image of casinos,” she said. “It isn't a real image though.” She added that negative publicity had made it worse. “People see one casino associated with prostitution, for example, and assume that all casinos are like that.”

The casino association hopes to talk with government officials soon about the decrees, said Ms. Campos, especially about the new hours. As most casino representatives have said, Concorde Casinos received no information or warning whatsoever from the government about the decrees, said Ms. Campos. The association will wait until everything comes into light before making any major decisions, she said.