$97.4 Billion or a Quarter of That? Two Studies, One Offshore Market

What the two studies actually claim

GCI measures online losses only and models them; the AGA measures the whole illegal market and surveys it. The overlap is smaller than the headlines suggest.

The newer number reached the trade press around August 10–12, 2026. Gaming Compliance International (GCI), commissioned by the Campaign for Fairer Gambling — the reform group founded by Derek Webb — estimated that unlicensed sites and apps took $97.4 billion in gross gaming revenue from US consumers in 2025, up from approximately $67.1 billion in 2024, a rise of about 45 percent. Regulated online operators grew too, from roughly $23 billion to $28.3 billion, but only by about 23 percent. Put together, US online gambling losses rose from approximately $90.1 billion to $125.6 billion, and the unlicensed share moved from about 74 percent to 77 percent.

The comparison point is the AGA analysis released on August 13, 2025, conducted by The Innovation Group and built on a survey of 2,454 US adults. It put total illegal and unregulated gambling revenue at approximately $53.9 billion a year, on around $673.6 billion wagered, with roughly $15.3 billion in state taxes forgone. Within that, unregulated “skill” machines accounted for about $30.3 billion, illegal online casino games for $18.6 billion (up close to 38 percent since 2022), and illegal sports betting for about $5 billion in revenue on $84 billion wagered.

Why the gap is roughly fourfold

Three reasons: different product boundaries, different measurement, and a year between them.

They draw the boundary in different places

GCI's scope covers online sports betting, casino games, poker, crypto gambling and lotteries, and it adds a category it calls the White Noise Marketplace — the space between clearly legal and clearly illegal, which sweeps in sweepstakes casinos and prediction markets operating outside US commodities regulation. The AGA's illegal-online line does not stretch that far. Whether sweepstakes-model sites belong in an “illegal” total is a live argument rather than a settled fact, and moving that boundary alone moves the number by billions.

One counts what people say, the other models what platforms take

Survey-based sizing depends on respondents correctly identifying which sites they used as licensed or not — a distinction most players cannot reliably draw, since offshore sites market themselves in the same register as regulated ones. Survey estimates therefore tend to run low. Modelled estimates carry the opposite risk: GCI's underlying data is not published, so its assumptions cannot be independently checked. Neither limitation is a scandal; both are ordinary, and both should temper how precisely you read the totals.

Both numbers were paid for by someone with a position

The Campaign for Fairer Gambling argues that legalising online gambling expands the overall market rather than displacing illegal operators, and a large unlicensed total supports that reading. The American Gaming Association represents licensed operators, whose interest lies in showing a substantial illegal market worth enforcing against without implying that regulation has failed. Saying that plainly does not collapse either study — it means the honest reading is a range, not a point estimate.

Where crypto casinos sit in this data

Inside it, explicitly — but as a jurisdictional category, not a quality grade.

Crypto gambling is a named product line in GCI's scope, and most crypto casinos hold licences from Curaçao, Anjouan or similar jurisdictions rather than from a US state regulator. For a US-facing estimate, that classifies them as unlicensed regardless of how the operator behaves. The label is about who can hold the operator to account, not about whether the games are honest or the payouts arrive.

That distinction matters in a specific, practical way. A Curaçao-licensed operator can run verifiable provably fair games, publish real terms and pay quickly — and still leave you with no state regulator to appeal to if it stops doing any of those things. What the licence determines is your recourse. Our guide to what different crypto casino licences actually oblige an operator to do sets out the differences, and regional gambling laws covers why your own location decides what is lawful for you.

Nothing here is a suggestion to play at sites that are unlawful where you live. Online gambling law is set state by state in the US and country by country elsewhere; check what applies to you before you deposit anywhere.

Five checks these numbers should prompt

Frequently asked questions