Unregulated online gambling generated $5.9 trillion in global wagering value in 2025, according to a new report from Gaming Compliance International (GCI).
GCI says that, at this level, unregulated online gambling would rank as the world’s third-largest “economy” behind only the United States and China, while also representing the largest form of cybercrime globally.
Unlicensed Operators Hold the Larger Share of Online Gaming GGR
GCI’s report, GCI Online Gaming 2025: Global, estimates that unregulated online gambling represented 78% of global online gaming GGR in 2025, compared with 22% for regulated operators. The data covers online sports betting, casino, crypto gambling, and poker.
The imbalance is significant because GGR measures the value left with operators after customer winnings are paid out. According to GCI’s figures, most revenue in the covered online gaming categories is generated outside licensed and supervised environments.
The report defines unregulated online gambling as unlicensed products including sports betting, casino, poker, crypto gambling, and lottery. It also includes prediction markets for sporting events, except in the United States, where prediction markets are currently classified and regulated as financial products by the CFTC.
GCI’s figures show continued growth in the value of unregulated online gambling wagering over the past three years. The report puts the total at $5.1 trillion in 2023, $5.7 trillion in 2024, and $5.9 trillion in 2025. It uses wagering value, or “handle”, to describe the value of bets placed by consumers, which is separate from GGR.
A Three-Sector Marketplace Is Replacing the Old Binary Model
The report argues that the online gaming marketplace can no longer be described only as regulated or unregulated. GCI identifies a third category: unacknowledged gambling.
Regulated online gaming covers licensed gambling platforms and products operating within established legal frameworks. Unregulated online gambling covers platforms and products that are not authorised, licensed or regulated in a jurisdiction, but still target, remain accessible to and transact with consumers there.
Unacknowledged gambling covers platforms and products that replicate gambling through stake, uncertainty, and reward but are not currently classified as gaming, betting, or lotteries. GCI lists social casinos, sweepstakes, fake financial products, skins trading, TikTok contests, and prediction markets among the examples.
The scope of the $5.9 trillion figure is narrower than the full three-sector market described by GCI. The report states that the data covers unlicensed online gambling products, including sports betting, casino games, poker, crypto gambling, and lotteries. Daily fantasy sports, sweepstakes, social casinos, and prize draw contests are not covered by the data, even though some of these products are referenced elsewhere in the report as examples of unacknowledged gambling.
Consumers Face a Blurred Digital Marketplace
GCI describes the current environment as a “White Noise Marketplace”, where regulated, unregulated and unacknowledged products are visible and accessible in the same digital space. The report says audiences cannot reliably distinguish between the three sectors.
That creates a commercial and regulatory problem. Licensed operators compete for the same users as unlicensed platforms and gambling-like products, while consumers experience the market as one continuous online environment.
GCI links this shift to what it calls the “gamification of everything”. In the report’s framing, users are increasingly exposed to products built around betting-like mechanics, even when those products do not clearly fit within traditional gambling definitions.
The report also identifies several drivers for the growth of unregulated and unacknowledged activity in 2026. These include product bleed from unacknowledged categories, illegal sports streaming, regulatory exploitation, and major sports events. GCI states that unregulated gambling advertising appeared on more than 80% of illegal sports streaming content in the United States and the United Kingdom in 2024 and 2025.
Matt Holt, CEO of GCI, said: “At $5.9 trillion in wagering value, unregulated online gambling is one of the largest economic systems in the world, operating largely outside regulatory oversight. Regulators are not facing a marginal challenge but a dominant one – the majority of activity occurs beyond the regulated perimeter. Our role is to provide full transparency across the total marketplace, enabling regulators to act with confidence.”
Ismail Vali, President of GCI, said: “What we are now seeing is a three-sector gaming marketplace in every jurisdiction – regulated, unregulated, and unacknowledged – and it is this third layer that is accelerating consumer confusion, unregulated growth, and regulatory complexity at scale.
“The audience does not distinguish between these sectors. They experience one marketplace, where everything is accessible, and everything competes equally. In a world where you can bet on anything, consumers are increasingly betting on everything – this is the gamification of everything.
“If you cannot see the entire marketplace – regulated, unregulated, and unacknowledged – you cannot control it. This is the shift. This is the problem we are helping to solve at GCI.”
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