Unregulated online gambling reached $5.9 trillion in global wagering value in 2025, according to new analysis from Gaming Compliance International. The figure shows how large the black-market and grey-market gambling economy has become for licensed operators.
Online Gaming 2025: Global puts unregulated operators at 78% of global online gaming gross gaming revenue. Regulated operators account for the remaining 22%.
Licensed operators face a bigger challenge
Unregulated gambling covers activity run by unlicensed operators that still target and transact with customers. That includes offshore betting and casino sites operating outside local licensing systems.
The report also identifies a third category called “unacknowledged” gambling. This covers gambling-like products that fall outside traditional classification, including social casinos, sweepstakes, skins trading, some prediction markets, fake financial products and digital contests.
Consumers often see one online marketplace. A licensed sportsbook, an offshore casino, a sweepstakes platform and a prediction market can all appear through the same search results, social feeds, affiliates and payment routes.
Prediction markets are part of the debate
Sports-event prediction markets are included under the unregulated heading. In the United States, they are currently regulated as financial products by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
That distinction reflects the legal fight now playing out in several U.S. states. Gambling regulators argue that sports contracts look like betting products when offered to retail users, while platforms point to federal commodities oversight. The report treats prediction markets as part of the wider online gambling debate rather than a separate finance-only issue.
Report pushes monitoring and enforcement model
The market has moved from a two-part split between regulated and unregulated gambling into a three-sector structure: regulated, unregulated and unacknowledged. That creates consumer confusion, tax leakage and weaker protection.
GCI is promoting a monitor, police, enforce and optimise model. The framework is aimed at helping governments track the full market before deciding where enforcement, blocking, taxation or licensing action should sit.
For licensed operators, the $5.9 trillion figure gives more weight to debates over tax rates, advertising limits and channelisation. Heavy restrictions on legal brands can create more space for offshore and unclassified competitors already operating at global scale.
