Study: 74% of the US Online Gambling Market Is Illegal

New data by Yield Sec’s analysis of the US iGaming landscape suggests that about 74% of all such activities may be conducted illegally, whether it concerns online casinos, sports betting, or crypto.

Illegal Gambling Is Running at Levels Nobody Knows About

The new analysis is backed by The Campaign for Fairer Gambling, and it has found that illegal channels continue to dominate operations in the United States. But there are other considerations as well.

Yield Sec founder Ismail Vali argues that the use of illegal means to gamble and cryptocurrency specifically is a problem that has not been addressed in earnest by regulators and lawmakers. Just because you have regulated a market, this doesn’t mean that crime is automatically going to disappear, he insists.

Rather, he estimates that 70% of gambling activity now remains focused on illegal channels and “flows” through them. In the case of the United States specifically, Yield Sec has analyzed individual states and tried to pinpoint the value of their respective black markets as well.

For example, California and Texas have no regulated gambling markets whatsoever, and they contribute $5.5 billion and $4.5 billion to the total value of the illegal gambling market in the United States alone.

Yield Sec, though, insists that regulating doesn’t mean that you have been able to do away with illegal gambling whatsoever. In the case of Ohio, another state with regulated gaming, the share of the legal market is just 15% of the $6.2 billion market total, with around 917 operators detected locally.

Crypto is another issue for staying on top of regulated gambling, with Yield Sec arguing that it has identified tens of thousands of crypto casinos all over the world, and each, the firm argues, is finding a way to exploit some regulatory loophole.

Using Counter-Terrorism Methodology, But Are the Numbers Right?

Yield Sec is confident about its ability to track data from the unregulated and illegal gambling sectors and markets. Vali explains that the methodology used by his firm was originally used and deployed to respond to terrorist threats, such as ISIS, but has evolved to track gambling volumes for events such as the Super Bowl and March Madness with remarkable accuracy.

Despite the claims laid bare by Yield Sec, one issue persists – how is it possible for the firm to paint a picture so grim when it comes to illegal gambling, when mainstream and specialist research firms are failing to quite produce the same numbers?