Hm. I don't know how Curacao is in terms of player support -- probably as bad as everyone says -- but you can't be "licensed" in Curacao if you're an unlicensed Costa Rica operation. Take it from me, I'm deep in the middle of trying to set my casino up right now. To get a Curacao license, you have to have a corporation in Curacao. In addition, most casinos claiming to be licensed there are actually sub-licensees to one of a few master license holders. These are audited periodically. The costs to the casinos is fairly high. Not as high as the IoM or Malta. However, it is a world of difference between that and a completely unlicensed Costa Rica enterprise.

The fact is, there is almost no such thing as an unlicensed CR casino anymore, other than sportsbooks that have a land-based component. It doesn't exist. The reason it doesn't exist is that if you want to land funds from players in the EU, you have to bank in the EU. And processors in the EU won't do business with casinos who don't have a license from a country that is considered okay. Basically, EU offshore locations, Kahnawake, Antigua and Curacao make that particular white list. While it's true that Curacao is not on the UK advertising white list, it is recognized as a legitimate licensing jurisdiction by banks that do business in the UK; meaning that a Curacao-licensed casino can get processing there. On the other hand, a Costa Rica operation will not have a legal path to taking payments from the UK. The only way for them to take payments then is to run it through a gray-market processor who recodes the transactions. The cost of that is so high (about double the normal processing fees) that it doesn't make sense for any casino to do it.

Now none of this is to say that some casinos haven't figured out ways to stay in Costa Rica, land funds in Panama or somewhere, and game the system, then lie about being licensed somewhere they aren't; but a quick call to the licensing board should clear up the question. And licensing in Curacao is a pretty heavy proposition at least from this coder's standpoint, as far as how much operational control they want over your servers, etc. It doesn't appear to be a pay-to-play thing where they just take the casino's money and then leave them alone to turn rogue.