WORLD CUP SPECIAL: Curaçao, the tiny Dutch Caribbean island that is a major offshore gambling and banking hub, has become the smallest nation ever to qualify for the FIFA World Cup.
With a population of just 158,006 people, Curaçao in the Dutch Antilles in the southern Caribbean, just off Venezuela, is known for its paradise beaches, shimmering turquoise waters and expansive coral reefs – and has long been famous–if not infamous–as an iGaming regulator double the size of the Malta Gaming Authority and hosting hundreds (427) of active operators running off-shore sites serving millions of gamblers around the world.
Curaçao, which became an autonomous constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands on October 10, 2010, was among the earliest territories to issue online gambling licences, with the first permits issued in 1996.
Before its gambling laws were updated and tightened, the jurisdiction was popular for many years due to lax controls, low taxation and the fact that it issued a single licence, which covered all activities, with close to zero oversight.
Money Laundering
Curaçao’s many retail casinos and gambling sites have been linked to money laundering schemes and major crime networks in American, Italian, Brazilian, Dutch and Russian criminal cases – although it is not–and has never been–on the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) money-laundering black or grey list.
Now, boosted by the island’s World Cup qualification, the rebrand is on.
And Curaçao has displaced Iceland, which played in the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, as the smallest nation ever to qualify for planet football’s premier championship.
Two years previously in the 2016 Euros, Iceland famously beat a shell-shocked England 1-0, so the future of Curaçao’s team of tyros, many of them semi-professional players, is replete with possibilities.
Stranger Things
Bookies are offering odds of 17,500 for the tiny Caribbean nation to lift the storied Jules Rimet trophy in the New York New Jersey Stadium on July 19 – effectively a zero percent chance.
Nevertheless, with a GDP per capita of US$22,832 (£16,977) there will still be many Curaçaoans with the disposal funds to have fun and bet on the progress of their national team through the competition being held between June 11 and July 19 in Canada, the United States and Mexico.
To qualify for the World Cup, Curaçao played 10 matches, won seven, scored 15 goals and finished their campaign unbeaten, upsetting rivals Barbados, Aruba, Saint Lucia and Haiti in the Caribbean CONCACAF soccer region.
Currently ranked 82nd in the FIFA world tables, they kick-off their campaign in the finals against mighty four-times winners Germany in the Houston Stadium on June 14.
With Ecuador and Ivory Coast also in their Group E, will the competition’s “Mighty Mouse” roar and qualify for the later knockout stages.
Stranger things have happened.
Watch this space!
