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Back to the future: Why US sportsbooks aren’t embracing offshore talent

by Matt Schmitto, CDC Gaming Reports

 

Twenty years ago as a clerk in Costa Rica, when he was just beginning his journey into the sports betting industry, Joey Oddessa wondered if the calls would ever stop. Today in the U.S., amid the nationwide explosion of the legal sports wagering industry, he’s wondering if his phone will ever ring.

Oddessa bet with offshore books via telephone in his youth. When he was 29, he decided he didn’t just want to bet, he wanted to be on the other side of the line. So he packed up and moved to Costa Rica in 1999 in hopes of finding a steady job.

In the wake of the May 2018 Supreme Court ruling that opened the floodgates for states to legalize sports betting, Oddessa booked a one-way ticket back home, but he’s learning that going back to the U.S. from parts of the Caribbean or Central America, or “Back to the Future,” as some North American expatriates call it, isn’t so easy for some former offshore sportsbook employees. In fact some experiences may now spell a kind of scarlet letter.

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