New report highlights scope of gambling black market

[The Buzz]

At the Next.io Summit New York, market analytics platform Blask presented a new report examining the 2025 online gambling markets in the U.S. and Canada, with a strong emphasis on the reach of the black market.

Steve Ruddock's Straight to the Point newsletter broke down the key takeaways:

Here are the key takeaways identified by Blask:

Offshore still dominates. Despite growing domestic momentum, unlicensed operators control roughly two-thirds of total U.S. market volume by CEB (Competitive Earning Baseline), which Blask defines as a projected revenue a brand should realistically capture given its market presence.

Full‐spectrum regulation works — but takes time. Six out of seven fully regulated states (offering both online casino and sports betting) have tipped the balance toward domestic operators, averaging ~62% domestic CEB. Michigan leads at 75%, while Rhode Island — the youngest fully regulated market, operating as a lottery‐run monopoly — remains below 50%. Channelization is a multi‐year process, not a switch.

California and Texas are the biggest untapped prizes. Together they represent nearly $10B in CEB — entirely offshore. As standalone countries, California would rank 8th globally by CEB, Texas — 9th.

Without casino, offshore fills the gap. Betting‐only markets average 74% offshore, and the ceiling is structural: of 24 states with online betting but no licensed casino, only 2 (Maryland, Arizona) have achieved domestic CEB above 40%. Players seeking slots and table games are pushed offshore by default.

Read more from Ruddock here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-190977620

Read the report here: https://strapi-post-generator.ams3.c...a85dfc0cdb.pdf

[eenzoo]

What a surprise ... same goes for Germany as an EU example ... some big operator call for regulation, big affiliates call for regulation ...
For majority regulation means (for good reason), surveillance, costs, harassment, ... negative only.
Give people the freedom to live their lives as they wish, rather than in a way that maximises the state’s profits.

[All In Affiliates]

I'm somewhat surprised by the offshore gambling data in Canada. I wonder how much Drake is powering that

[Pokerface]

Interesting read, thanks for sharing.

[MMM]

Interesting read, thanks for sharing.

man, i dont think you really need those 12 post in 12 minutes

[Pokerface]

Finally had quiet time to catch up while waiting for an appointment. Wish I had more time like that.

[gram]

Interesting data.
Feels like the dominance of offshore is largely driven by missing product (especially casino), not just regulation. If users can’t find what they want locally, they’ll go elsewhere.
Also makes sense that channelization takes time — behavior doesn’t shift overnight.

[QuantumNomad]

It’s interesting to see what they actually plan to do with this Unlicensed casinos will inevitably keep thriving - launching a fully compliant, legal casino project requires enormous investment, and maintaining everything within the regulatory framework is just as costly and complex. On top of that, many users themselves don’t mind going into the grey market. A significant share of gamblers knowingly choose unlicensed platforms. And as always, demand drives supply - illegal casinos are multiplying rapidly, especially now that launching a casino is no longer particularly difficult or prohibitively expensive.

[Valge]

The product gap point is key and I think it gets overlooked. Regulators tend to frame offshore as a compliance issue, but in most cases it's simpler than that — if the licensed market doesn't offer casino, players don't choose offshore out of preference, they go there because there's nowhere else to go.

The numbers reflect this pretty clearly. States with both sports betting and casino averaging 62% domestic share versus 26% in betting-only markets, telling you everything about where the actual problem is.

The California and Texas figures are hard to ignore, though. $10B sitting entirely offshore while both states remain unregulated isn't a market failure; it's a policy choice. Difficult to take the black market rhetoric seriously when the two biggest prizes haven't been opened up yet.