Gaming Compliance International (GCI) estimates that unregulated online gambling generated $5.9 trillion in wagering value, or total handle, in 2025. This number represents an increase from $5.7 trillion in 2024 and $5.1 trillion in 2023.
The figure refers to wagering value rather than gross gaming revenue or GDP. However, Gaming Compliance International argues that a large share of the market remains outside existing licensing and enforcement systems.
A Market Outside the Licensed Perimeter
Based on the report, unregulated operators now account for 78% of global gross gaming revenue. Licensed operators account for the remaining 22%, despite years of market openings, new licensing systems, and tax frameworks.
The key concern for regulators is that legalizing gambling is not enough to shift users into licensed channels. It is easy for many users to access unlicensed products, especially when sports betting, casino play, and other forms of gambling are present in one place.
Prediction Markets Add a Third Category
In addition to categories like “regulated” and “unregulated”, GCI’s report introduces a third dimension: "unacknowledged." The category includes products such as social casinos, sweepstakes, skins trading, TikTok contests, fake financial products, and prediction markets.
Prediction markets are the hardest case for regulators since the same type of product may be classified differently in the US and abroad. In the US, some platforms operate under financial-market rules. Elsewhere, the exact same product may qualify as unlicensed gambling.
That creates inconsistency. While a consumer sees only one type of product, regulators may classify it differently, and operators can frame similar products through different legal categories, depending on the market.
Illegal Streams Keep Feeding Traffic
GCI also connects unregulated gambling growth to illegal sports streaming. The report says that unregulated gambling ads could be seen on more than 80% of illegal sports streams in both the US and the UK during 2024 and 2025.
These traffic routes give unlicensed operators access to viewers that regulated companies are unlikely to reach in the same way. A user searching for free access to sports games can be redirected to offshore gambling or casino websites directly.
The same findings also raise consumer safety concerns. Illegal streaming sites often sit close to scams, malicious software, and misleading ads. As such, when gambling ads are placed in this environment, users may struggle to distinguish a legitimate brand from an unsafe one.
What Regulators Need to Watch
GCI’s central argument is not only about the size of the unregulated market. The more urgent concern is that regulators may be seeing just a fraction of the real market.
Licensed operators still have to comply with the local rules, tax systems, age verification requirements, and responsible gambling controls. Unregulated competitors can cross geographic boundaries, combine different product types, and use channels that legal brands cannot use.
The report suggests that effective regulation will require better visibility of the market. Authorities will have to monitor licensed, unlicensed, and unclassified products together. Otherwise, newly introduced regulations could capture only part of the audience while the fastest growth moves somewhere else.
