Yield Sec: US online gross gambling revenue hit $90.1B in 2024, of which 74% went to illegal casinos; unlicensed operators in California made $5.5B in revenue
Context & Ripple Effects
The US figures place the market’s expansion alongside a large unlicensed channel, rather than solely the regulated sports-betting growth that followed the 2018 change in US sports-betting rules. California stands out in the report as a major example of that gap.
The pattern is not confined to the US: Yield Sec later estimated that illegal operators captured 71% of Europe’s online betting and casino market, while separate coverage found crypto casinos had reached traditional betting groups’ scale.
First-order effects
- Licensed US gambling operators are competing for online customers in a market where the reported majority of gross gambling revenue is flowing to illegal casinos.
- California’s $5.5B in reported unlicensed-operator revenue makes the state a particularly consequential enforcement and policy focus.
Second-order effects
- The scale of the unlicensed segment increases pressure on regulators and licensed operators to address the customer-experience and access advantages that draw activity outside licensed channels.
- Evidence that illegal online gambling is large in both the US and Europe gives cross-border operators and crypto-focused casinos a stronger competitive position relative to nationally regulated betting groups.
Third-order effects
- If this split persists, online gambling’s economic center of gravity may remain divided between regulated brands and hard-to-police offshore or crypto-enabled operators, limiting the reach of country-by-country licensing regimes.
- The result could be a more sustained policy debate over whether market opening alone can channel gambling activity into supervised venues, especially given prior coverage of the broader social consequences of rapid US online sports-betting growth.
The trend: Online gambling is becoming a global, digitally accessible market in which regulated expansion is not necessarily displacing illegal and crypto-enabled alternatives.