By A Friend of Millennium Sports
With all that has happened in the past few months around the globe, including the Tsunami disaster, I have held off publishing this exclusive to the RX readers for fear that it might set off a miscalculated “rush to the bank” on sports books situated in Costa Rica.
With March Madness now behind us, I feel this is the time to get all of this off of my chest once and for all. Indeed, this might be a good time for all of us (management of sports books as well) to change our strategies so that the bettor and or the proprietors of these companies can change the way they do things before it’s too late. This is not intended in any way to endorse or promote any particular company involved in the sports book industry, but rather to enlighten you to all the facts and circumstances surrounding the sports book industry as a whole, and the likely ramifications in the event of a natural disaster.
Most of this is purely speculative in nature, and I don’t claim to have a degree in seismology or be proficient in soothsaying. Costa Rica is a little country in Central America sandwiched between Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south. The country should be listed as a “must see” on anyone’s list of countries to visit. For a third world nation, its people are very sophisticated, technologically advanced, and highly educated. Costa Rica is the most stable country in Central America. It is a democracy that has no military, and last experienced political turmoil during the revolution of 1948. Like most Central America countries, it does not experience hurricanes. It rains about eight months of the year, which promotes success in agriculture and the resulting world trade of sugar cane, corn, bananas, and their principal crop, coffee.
Many companies, such as Intel and MSD, have set up shop in Costa Rica. The country’s philosophy is that if it is not illegal, then it’s legal. Prostitution is legal because it is not illegal. Prior to passing legislation in 2002, bookmaking was legal in Costa Rica because there were no laws against it. They then taxed (licensed) sports books according to size for a one-year period, before they put it back into legislation for revamping. A new licensing law is soon expected for sports books operating in Costa Rica.
Although bookmakers may operate freely in Costa Rica, they are not allowed to bank clients’ funds within the country. Costa Rica, as beautiful as it is, suffers from the frequency of earthquakes, occurring on average of about once per month. Many bookmakers will tell you that it’s nothing to get yourself worked up about. Many will tell you that it never got over six on the Richter scale, nor did they ever slide out of the window as their chair was rolling from wall to wall in their offices. None will mention how frequently their Costa Rican employees (who grew up with quakes and should treat these occurrences as rather ho-hum) flee to the hallways when one occurs, many with faces as white as a sheet.
My Costa Rican wife attributes these earthquakes to a phenomenon called “Placa del Coco.” No, she’s not a voodoo tribe member, but rather a very intelligent, highly educated lawyer, who says this phenomenon is related to two plates (or a geological fault) that come together under the ground from Nicaragua, through Guanacaste, through San Jose to Panama. When they come together we experience a tremor. The closer these plates interact gives you a higher degree of energy. She, like most Costa Ricans, believes there will be a day when the country experiences the ultimate in earthquake disasters. Every time they experience an earthquake in Costa Rica they quietly pray that this is not “the big one.”
Now most of you will claim all of this to be nonsense. Well, Managua, Nicaragua is only a four-hour drive to the north, and they have experienced three devastating earthquakes in the 20th century, the last in 1992. On December 23, 1972 10,000 people were killed as a result, including our beloved Roberto Clemente, who lost his life flying to Managua with food and supplies on a cargo plane. Eighty percent of all the buildings in Managua were leveled as a result of that quake.
I have lived in Costa Rica for more than seven years now. My house is situated purposely on high ground above the valley, where I can see all of San Jose from my back terrace. Coincidentally, two prominent bookmakers live a stone’s throw from my house. I’m sure they chose that locale for the same reasons as me. My house is equipped with reserve water tanks below ground and has a gasoline-powered generator to provide us with sufficient electricity to get by if and when disaster hits. My wife keeps an ample supply of packaged and canned food goods in reserve at all times, along with bottled water and first aid necessities.
Let’s talk about the playing field in Costa Rica. All of the players think that bookmakers bask on the beach during the day, and work in their offices to serve you each evening. Forget it! It’s at least a two-hour drive to the beach in any direction, through the mountains that surround San Jose, utilizing roads that barely provide for the passing of two cars going in the opposite direction. San Jose has two major highways (four lanes total) and its streets are paved in asphalt that deteriorates into potholes. These monsters can swallow a compact vehicle whole during the rainy season.
The Juan Santa Maria airport (originally Coco Field), which was built by my late father-in-law, has one small runway, which is used for both landing and takeoffs. It has just eight ports for planes. Keep in mind that the country has no army or National Guard…so manpower, machinery and heavy equipment would have to be brought in through that airport by the U.S. aiding in any disaster. It would take them a month to arrive on the scene if they entered through the frontiers of Nicaragua or Panama). This would be akin to the fireman trying to get up to the 100th floor of the World Trade Center during that catastrophe.
In a true disaster setting, San Jose would become totally immobile. In the event of a major earthquake, San Jose, Costa Rica could be shut down for an entire football season. Of course, all of the bookies are nestled in the hills, so your account and your money are safe. Baloney! The majority of bookies have offices in Office Centro, opposite Sabana Lake Park Mall San Pedro to the east, the CRIS building around the corner from Office Centro, and the rest being dispersed throughout San Jose in smaller office buildings above shopping malls or in large houses that were transformed into office settings.
These large buildings in Office Centro, CRIS, and Mall San Pedro were specially designed on shock absorber plates beneath their foundation which allows the building to physically move and sway during an episode, and are not higher than 10 stories. They have been put to the test quite often, as anyone who has lived through tremors in these buildings well knows. No one knows for sure how much each of these buildings can tolerate before the wobbling back and forth causes them to break off and fall to the street below. I pray not to be in one of these structures when it finally does happen.
So if and when Armageddon finally does hit Costa Rica, and even if some of these buildings do manage to withstand the wrath of the Almighty, what effects will this have on the Costa Rican wagering industry? Most of the telephone lines, with the exception of the cable beneath the sea, are above ground on antiquated telephone poles. Electrical lines that run through San Jose are above ground as well. If the servers that keep account balances are not beneath rubble, how can we interact with them from our computers back in the states? Will the guys with the smaller companies pack it in? Worse yet, will they abscond with your funds located in banks in other countries?
Fallen satellite dishes and downed communication lines are secondary priorities when compared to saving lives. Months could go by before sports book clients know how they stand. The strategic placing of redundant servers in other countries by Costa Rica sports books could prevent this whole business calamity from happening. Millennium Sports and its affiliate companies have had redundant servers in another country for several years now. I believe that CRIS follows the very same practice in the very same country as Millennium. BoDog Sports has offices in Canada as well. Therefore, one can only assume that they have some sort of redundancy plan set in place up there as well.
The guy who most people affectionately refer to as “G” of BOS has even gone so far as to construct a 130-seat call center in the country where he set up his redundant server. This would hardly suffice in serving their clientele, but at least most customers would enjoy the comfort of a friendly voice when dialing the office number in the event of a disaster.
Does this sound expensive? Ask any bookmaker and he’ll tell you that it would only involve an investment of about $50,000 for a quality Dell server. With installation and bandwidth allowances, it would be an initial outlay of less than $100,000. Isn’t that worth keeping a sports book’s investment and business intact in the event of a disaster?
Knowing what I know today, I can only tell you what I would do if I were a bettor with a sports book in Costa Rica. I would ask them exactly what they were doing to back up all of the transactions tin Costa Rica. I would inquire if they had any redundancy elsewhere, and if not, why not? If I wasn’t satisfied with all of their answers, I would never allow my wagering bankroll, much less my life savings, to be tied up with them. I certainly would make sure I backed up all of my work on my home computer each day. I would also print it out, just in case I ever had to verify my account status to some unfortunate sports book operator trying to dig out of the rubble.
This would all be a moot point if you’re a credit player, playing with a credit shop, as agents have a way of keeping up to snuff with your daily numbers. You would just be moved to another shop in another country in the event of a disaster, and you would experience very little down time. All of the above refers to the post-up player who sends his hard-earned cash to a Costa Rican sports book.
As for me, I believe in the Boy Scout motto…”Be prepared.”
With all that has happened in the past few months around the globe, including the Tsunami disaster, I have held off publishing this exclusive to the RX readers for fear that it might set off a miscalculated “rush to the bank” on sports books situated in Costa Rica.
With March Madness now behind us, I feel this is the time to get all of this off of my chest once and for all. Indeed, this might be a good time for all of us (management of sports books as well) to change our strategies so that the bettor and or the proprietors of these companies can change the way they do things before it’s too late. This is not intended in any way to endorse or promote any particular company involved in the sports book industry, but rather to enlighten you to all the facts and circumstances surrounding the sports book industry as a whole, and the likely ramifications in the event of a natural disaster.
Most of this is purely speculative in nature, and I don’t claim to have a degree in seismology or be proficient in soothsaying. Costa Rica is a little country in Central America sandwiched between Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south. The country should be listed as a “must see” on anyone’s list of countries to visit. For a third world nation, its people are very sophisticated, technologically advanced, and highly educated. Costa Rica is the most stable country in Central America. It is a democracy that has no military, and last experienced political turmoil during the revolution of 1948. Like most Central America countries, it does not experience hurricanes. It rains about eight months of the year, which promotes success in agriculture and the resulting world trade of sugar cane, corn, bananas, and their principal crop, coffee.
Many companies, such as Intel and MSD, have set up shop in Costa Rica. The country’s philosophy is that if it is not illegal, then it’s legal. Prostitution is legal because it is not illegal. Prior to passing legislation in 2002, bookmaking was legal in Costa Rica because there were no laws against it. They then taxed (licensed) sports books according to size for a one-year period, before they put it back into legislation for revamping. A new licensing law is soon expected for sports books operating in Costa Rica.
Although bookmakers may operate freely in Costa Rica, they are not allowed to bank clients’ funds within the country. Costa Rica, as beautiful as it is, suffers from the frequency of earthquakes, occurring on average of about once per month. Many bookmakers will tell you that it’s nothing to get yourself worked up about. Many will tell you that it never got over six on the Richter scale, nor did they ever slide out of the window as their chair was rolling from wall to wall in their offices. None will mention how frequently their Costa Rican employees (who grew up with quakes and should treat these occurrences as rather ho-hum) flee to the hallways when one occurs, many with faces as white as a sheet.
My Costa Rican wife attributes these earthquakes to a phenomenon called “Placa del Coco.” No, she’s not a voodoo tribe member, but rather a very intelligent, highly educated lawyer, who says this phenomenon is related to two plates (or a geological fault) that come together under the ground from Nicaragua, through Guanacaste, through San Jose to Panama. When they come together we experience a tremor. The closer these plates interact gives you a higher degree of energy. She, like most Costa Ricans, believes there will be a day when the country experiences the ultimate in earthquake disasters. Every time they experience an earthquake in Costa Rica they quietly pray that this is not “the big one.”
Now most of you will claim all of this to be nonsense. Well, Managua, Nicaragua is only a four-hour drive to the north, and they have experienced three devastating earthquakes in the 20th century, the last in 1992. On December 23, 1972 10,000 people were killed as a result, including our beloved Roberto Clemente, who lost his life flying to Managua with food and supplies on a cargo plane. Eighty percent of all the buildings in Managua were leveled as a result of that quake.
I have lived in Costa Rica for more than seven years now. My house is situated purposely on high ground above the valley, where I can see all of San Jose from my back terrace. Coincidentally, two prominent bookmakers live a stone’s throw from my house. I’m sure they chose that locale for the same reasons as me. My house is equipped with reserve water tanks below ground and has a gasoline-powered generator to provide us with sufficient electricity to get by if and when disaster hits. My wife keeps an ample supply of packaged and canned food goods in reserve at all times, along with bottled water and first aid necessities.
Let’s talk about the playing field in Costa Rica. All of the players think that bookmakers bask on the beach during the day, and work in their offices to serve you each evening. Forget it! It’s at least a two-hour drive to the beach in any direction, through the mountains that surround San Jose, utilizing roads that barely provide for the passing of two cars going in the opposite direction. San Jose has two major highways (four lanes total) and its streets are paved in asphalt that deteriorates into potholes. These monsters can swallow a compact vehicle whole during the rainy season.
The Juan Santa Maria airport (originally Coco Field), which was built by my late father-in-law, has one small runway, which is used for both landing and takeoffs. It has just eight ports for planes. Keep in mind that the country has no army or National Guard…so manpower, machinery and heavy equipment would have to be brought in through that airport by the U.S. aiding in any disaster. It would take them a month to arrive on the scene if they entered through the frontiers of Nicaragua or Panama). This would be akin to the fireman trying to get up to the 100th floor of the World Trade Center during that catastrophe.
In a true disaster setting, San Jose would become totally immobile. In the event of a major earthquake, San Jose, Costa Rica could be shut down for an entire football season. Of course, all of the bookies are nestled in the hills, so your account and your money are safe. Baloney! The majority of bookies have offices in Office Centro, opposite Sabana Lake Park Mall San Pedro to the east, the CRIS building around the corner from Office Centro, and the rest being dispersed throughout San Jose in smaller office buildings above shopping malls or in large houses that were transformed into office settings.
These large buildings in Office Centro, CRIS, and Mall San Pedro were specially designed on shock absorber plates beneath their foundation which allows the building to physically move and sway during an episode, and are not higher than 10 stories. They have been put to the test quite often, as anyone who has lived through tremors in these buildings well knows. No one knows for sure how much each of these buildings can tolerate before the wobbling back and forth causes them to break off and fall to the street below. I pray not to be in one of these structures when it finally does happen.
So if and when Armageddon finally does hit Costa Rica, and even if some of these buildings do manage to withstand the wrath of the Almighty, what effects will this have on the Costa Rican wagering industry? Most of the telephone lines, with the exception of the cable beneath the sea, are above ground on antiquated telephone poles. Electrical lines that run through San Jose are above ground as well. If the servers that keep account balances are not beneath rubble, how can we interact with them from our computers back in the states? Will the guys with the smaller companies pack it in? Worse yet, will they abscond with your funds located in banks in other countries?
Fallen satellite dishes and downed communication lines are secondary priorities when compared to saving lives. Months could go by before sports book clients know how they stand. The strategic placing of redundant servers in other countries by Costa Rica sports books could prevent this whole business calamity from happening. Millennium Sports and its affiliate companies have had redundant servers in another country for several years now. I believe that CRIS follows the very same practice in the very same country as Millennium. BoDog Sports has offices in Canada as well. Therefore, one can only assume that they have some sort of redundancy plan set in place up there as well.
The guy who most people affectionately refer to as “G” of BOS has even gone so far as to construct a 130-seat call center in the country where he set up his redundant server. This would hardly suffice in serving their clientele, but at least most customers would enjoy the comfort of a friendly voice when dialing the office number in the event of a disaster.
Does this sound expensive? Ask any bookmaker and he’ll tell you that it would only involve an investment of about $50,000 for a quality Dell server. With installation and bandwidth allowances, it would be an initial outlay of less than $100,000. Isn’t that worth keeping a sports book’s investment and business intact in the event of a disaster?
Knowing what I know today, I can only tell you what I would do if I were a bettor with a sports book in Costa Rica. I would ask them exactly what they were doing to back up all of the transactions tin Costa Rica. I would inquire if they had any redundancy elsewhere, and if not, why not? If I wasn’t satisfied with all of their answers, I would never allow my wagering bankroll, much less my life savings, to be tied up with them. I certainly would make sure I backed up all of my work on my home computer each day. I would also print it out, just in case I ever had to verify my account status to some unfortunate sports book operator trying to dig out of the rubble.
This would all be a moot point if you’re a credit player, playing with a credit shop, as agents have a way of keeping up to snuff with your daily numbers. You would just be moved to another shop in another country in the event of a disaster, and you would experience very little down time. All of the above refers to the post-up player who sends his hard-earned cash to a Costa Rican sports book.
As for me, I believe in the Boy Scout motto…”Be prepared.”
uke1: This article makes me wanna puke!!!OF
