As Legislators From Gaming States Meet in Puerto Rico, Unregulated Online Gambling Dominates.
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The dominance of illegal online gambling operators across the Puerto Rican marketplace is almost overwhelming: when audiences in Puerto Rico looked for gambling online during the first half of 2025, more than 93% of the content they were exposed to was for the promotion of illegal online gambling. Proponents of legalization assert that having more legal operators and more products is better for competition and implies that this will help reduce the size of the illegal sector. The evidence, contained in CFG reporting from years of monitoring and the most comprehensive study ever conducted upon the US online gambling marketplace at both the national and state levels, as well as this special briefing upon the territory of Puerto Rico, contradicts this assertion.
Derek Webb, Founder and Funder of CFG, said:
“Puerto Rico casinos in hotels, rely on business from tourists and local people. It would be a disaster for Puerto Rico tourism if iGaming was legalized and casinos closed due to local spend switching to online iGaming. At the release date of this briefing, the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States is holding a Winter Meeting in San Juan. US Federal authorities should be willing to help Puerto Rico legislators and regulators combat the illegal market, before legalizing iGaming is contemplated.”
Ismail Vali, founder and former CEO of Yield Sec and President of Gaming Compliance International (GCI), added:
“When legalization and regulation arrived in the USA in 2018, it was meant to begin the end for decades of illegal online gambling. The hope was simple: legal, licensed options in each state would “channelize” the marketplace and eliminate illegal gambling. This has not happened. A similar impact is being witnessed in Puerto Rico – the marketplace is dominated by illegals and the zero-sum game hopes for legalization and regulation to remove unregulated gambling on its own, are failing. Illegal gambling isn’t one problem – it’s many. You can only control it through process – MPEO: Monitor, Police, Enforce, Optimize. Unregulated gambling has now stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from Puerto Rican commerce and communities over decades – and it can be stopped. Change only happens through monitoring, policing, enforcing and optimizing the supply chain that delivers the reality of online gaming to consumers and the revenues that currently accrue to unregulated and illegal operators.”
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For further information and to access the CFG USA 2024 Reports please contact:
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Alastair Graham
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