According to a new briefing, United States gaming legislators met in San Juan over the weekend. Illegal online gambling operators are capturing the overwhelming majority of online gaming revenue in Puerto Rico. This is undermining the regulated sector and threatening the island’s public funds.
Prepared by technical intelligence platform YieldSec for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, the analysis found that illegal operators accounted for 84% of gross gaming revenue last year. They also made up 85% in the second half of the current year. In dollar terms, this equaled $131 million of a $156 million online gambling market last year. It also amounted to $75 million of an $88 million market in the first six months of the current year.
The report challenges the idea that legalization alone can curb unregulated gambling. It states that the illegal sector is actually three times larger than the legal market.
The briefing argues that policymakers usually encounter a large discrepancy. Claims about the size of the legal market differ nine-fold from the actual scale of illegal activity.
Founder of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, Derek Webb, said that Puerto Rico casinos in hotels rely on business from tourists and local people. Legalizing iGaming and closing casinos could devastate Puerto Rico’s tourism, as local spending might shift to online gaming.
He said that at the release date of this briefing, the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States was holding a winter meeting in San Juan. United States authorities are willing to help Puerto Rico’s legislators and regulators combat the illegal market before considering the legalization of iGaming.
As Puerto Rico keeps on evaluating the future of its online gaming framework, the findings come. The report states that only five legal operators were active on the island in 2024. By comparison, 1,327 illegal operators targeted local players. While legal operators increased slightly to six, the number of illegal operators remained high at 941, by mid-2025.
