Unregulated online gambling generated $5.9 trillion in wagering activity during 2025, according to new figures from Gaming Compliance International (GCI), placing the sector among the world’s largest economic systems by value. The estimate covers offshore sportsbooks, online casinos, poker, crypto gambling, lottery products and prediction-market platforms operating outside traditional licensing systems.
GCI reported that the total climbed from $5.1 trillion in 2023 and $5.7 trillion in 2024. The amount now exceeds the gross domestic product of every country except the United States and China.
“The scale of the unregulated online gambling sector is now undeniable,” GCI chief executive Matt Holt said. “At $5.9 trillion in wagering value, this is one of the largest economic systems in the world.”
The report said unregulated operators now account for 78 percent of global gross gaming revenue, while licensed operators hold 22 percent. Annual growth slowed to 4 percent in 2025 after reaching 12 percent in 2024, though the market still added roughly $235 billion in wagering activity.
GCI Adds a Third Gambling Category
GCI introduced a revised framework dividing online gambling into regulated, unregulated and “unacknowledged” segments. The third category includes products that imitate gambling activity without always falling under gambling laws, including prediction markets, social casinos, skins trading, sweepstakes and TikTok contests.
GCI President Ismail Vali said the emerging category has complicated oversight efforts worldwide.
“In a world where you can bet on anything, consumers are increasingly betting on everything,” Vali said. “This is the gamification of everything.”
The report stated that consumers often view licensed and unlicensed products as part of a single ecosystem.“The audience does not distinguish between these sectors,” Vali said. “They experience one marketplace, where everything is accessible and everything competes equally.”
Platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi remain central to the debate surrounding prediction markets. In the United States, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulates those products as financial contracts, while state gaming regulators argue that they resemble sports betting operations.
According to GCI, prediction-market products account for 8.7 percent of global unregulated sportsbook revenue despite representing just 0.2 percent of legal US sports-betting profitability.
Crypto Casinos and Illegal Streaming Draw Scrutiny
The report also examined links between offshore gambling operators and illegal sports-streaming services. GCI estimated that more than 80 percent of illegal sports streams viewed in the United States and United Kingdom during 2024 and 2025 contained advertisements for unregulated gambling platforms.
Vali warned that those streaming operations often expose users to wider criminal activity. “Behind illegal streaming is malware, spyware, keystroke logging, and scams. So if you have not become a victim of crime, you will once you engage with illegal streaming. You just don’t know it yet.”
Separate studies cited by GCI found that unlicensed operators controlled 71 percent of Europe’s online gambling market in 2024. The report also pointed to rising illegal gambling activity in the United Kingdom and Italy.
“If you cannot see the entire marketplace” across regulated, unregulated and unacknowledged segments, Vali wrote, “you cannot control it. This is the shift. This is the problem we are helping to solve at GCI.”
Source:
“‘Third Largest Economy’—$5.9 Trillion Gambling Beyond Regulation”, forbes.com, May 14, 2026
The post Global Illegal Gambling Market Reaches $5.9T first appeared on RealMoneyAction.com.