Costa Rica could soon be home to new $400 million casino

Costa Rica is getting ready for a new casino worth $400 million.

The construction of the Casino City Caribe is set for next year and will be built on the country’s Caribbean coast of Moin. According to a report by the Costa Rica Star, the casino will undergo several phases of construction until its total completion in 2027.

The project designed by the architecture firm Patti Rao Project, based in Vancouver, Canada, will have three hotels with 264 rooms and three casinos one to be cited in each hotel when completed.

The Casino City Caribe will also comprise of 219 apartments, a business centre, a spa and wellness centre, two convention rooms and other recreational facilities. Casino City Caribe will also have access to the beach, marina, and heliport.

The new project currently has all the needed support to take off and it is at the development stage. According to reports, the Ministry of Environment, the municipality of Matina and the Costa Rica Tourism Board (CRTB) have all given its approval for the construction of the project.

Casino City Caribe is a three-phase project with the first phase expected to create about 150 new jobs for the people in the area. However, it is not clear how long each phase will take to be complete. The entire project when completed and operational is expected to create about 1,500 new employment opportunities.

Moin is a multicultural community close to the Caribbean port city of Limon. Both cities have port terminals and handle most of the transoceanic trade in and out of Costa Rica.

About 80% of the country’s import and export traffic is from Moin and Limon. Its inhabitants comprise of people of Jamaican, Italian and Chinese descent. These people came in as labourers of the Costa Rican railway project during the nineteenth century and have remained there since.

Up until 1948, Afro-Caribbean people were unrecognised as citizens and were not allowed to leave the province of Limon. Since then, Costa Rica has developed a vibrant tourism sector and according to the CRTB, about 3 million tourists were recorded in 2017.

The first quarter of 2018 has seen a rise in tourism of about 6% compared to last year. There has been a rise in tourists from North America by 11.4% and a 14.2% rise in European visitors, which bodes well for the impending casino boost.

Overall tourists from North American make up less than 50% of the total visitors.