The $81B Myth Debunked

YieldSec recently claimed cryptocurrency wagers generated a staggering $81.4 billion in Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) for 2024 — a figure widely reported by outlets such as Financial Times, Cointelegraph, and Binance. However, our analysis at Tanzanite strongly suggests this figure is significantly overstated.

Contextualizing the Claim

Independent industry analyses consistently estimate the total global online gambling (iGaming) GGR in 2024 between approximately $79 billion and $95 billion:

• IMARC Group: $93 billion
• Global Market Insights: $95.5 billion
• Grand View Research: $78.7 billion
• GlobeNewswire: $93.3 billion
• Mordor Intelligence: $92.25 billion

Given these figures, YieldSec’s claim of $81.4 billion solely from cryptocurrency gambling leaves virtually no revenue for major traditional operators:

• Flutter Entertainment alone accounts for around $14 billion.
• Entain plc, DraftKings Inc., and Bet365 combined account for an additional $16 billion.

This major discrepancy indicates YieldSec’s estimate is highly improbable.

On-chain Data Analysis and Methodology

Given blockchain's inherent transparency, it’s expected there would be clear insights into crypto casino revenue. However, estimating crypto casino GGR remains complex due to limited operational transparency, mixed network usage, third-party payment handlers like Coinspaid, and privacy-enhancing sweeping methods used on UTXO chains such as Bitcoin and Litecoin.

The only revenue data available for 2024 includes Stake's self-reported GGR of $4.7 billion and Rollbit's dashboard-reported revenue of $474 million. However, to accurately extrapolate industry-wide revenue figures, we will use Stake's data exclusively, as Rollbit's deposits may include funds intended for non-casino offerings. Tanzanite actively tracks over 90 wallet addresses for 20 major crypto casinos across Ethereum, Solana, Tron, and Binance Smart Chain networks. Using Stake's publicly verifiable GGR-to-deposit ratio of 0.37 (derived from deposit volumes tracked only on these four chains, and thus not fully representative of total deposits), we applied this ratio to our tracked volumes to estimate total GGR of these 19 casinos at $8.1 billion. Considering other well-known sites, many startups, white-label operations, and decentralized forms of crypto gambling, we estimate an additional $1.5 billion, bringing the total to approximately $9.6 billion.

Hybrid Casino Consideration

Hybrid casinos, primarily fiat-focused but accepting crypto deposits (e.g., 1xBet, Dafabet, Bovada, Pinnacle), generate approximately $5 billion GGR. We derived the approximate 20% figure ($1 billion) from an assessment of these sites' operations—ranging from about 5% crypto share at Bitcoin-only sites with minimal crypto promotion to approximately 40% at US-focused sites experiencing high credit card decline rates and actively promoting multiple cryptocurrencies.

Case Study: Stake’s Market Presence

According to Stake's CEO on Twitter, Stake accounted for 5.9% of Bitcoin transactions, 12.3% of Dogecoin transactions, and 15.1% of Litecoin transactions in December 2022. Given Stake's continued prominence and growth since 2022, YieldSec’s $81.4 billion GGR figure while Stake sits at $4.7 billion seems increasingly implausible.

Conclusion

Our assessment indicates a realistic cryptocurrency gambling GGR in 2024 of around $10-11 billion — not $81.4 billion. Suggesting YieldSec’s reported figure is inconsistent with industry data and blockchain analysis.