Hearts Highway

What is Hearts Highway?

Other estimates are considerably higher, illustrating how difficult the market is to measure. As an example, separate research from Gaming Compliance International put the value of unregulated online gambling at $5.9 trillion in wagering value in 2025, while estimating that unregulated operators accounted for 78% of global online gaming GGR.

Another report, commisisoned by Euromat, estimates that Europe’s black market has sustained a compound annual growth rate of 18% between 2019 and 2026, and will be worth up to €13 billion by the end of the year.

For enforcement authorities, however, the challenge is not simply estimating its size. It is keeping track of an ecosystem that can continually change domains, infrastructure and acquisition channels. That is where Madsen sees Trace2Trace fitting in.

How to play Hearts Highway

Many top gaming stocks have underperformed relative to the broader market in recent years, and most of the M&A activity has been facilitated by private equity and other institutions that can more readily capitalise on depressed valuations. There had been hope that rates would start to fall and help alleviate those pressures.

“Publicly traded valuations are a reflection of the current interest rate environment,” Chad Beynon, lead gaming analyst for Macquarie, told iGB. “Whether it’s a long-term financial model on a growth company, you’re going to discount that back at a higher rate, or if it’s just a standard four-wall business, the cash flows in a higher interest rate environment are worth less.”

According to data from Yahoo Finance, the resort and casino sector is -41% over the last five years, and the overall gambling sector, which includes major sportsbooks and online operators, is +7%; the benchmark S&P 500 index, by comparison, is +71% during that span.

What is Hearts Highway?

“We appreciate Bally’s partnership and the thousands of construction workers helping bring Bally’s Chicago Casino to life – a major investment in our city’s future,” Johnson wrote in a social media post on X.

Earlier this year, the Illinois Gaming Board approved 65 VGT licence applications in the city, according to the Sun-Times. VGTs are the highest-grossing gaming vertical in Illinois, generating substantially more revenue and taxes than land-based casinos.

Papanier said the components of Bally’s Chicago that are being “reset and re-contemplated” are “all in conjunction with the proliferation of VGTs”. While the current number of licences is low, he asserted that widespread proliferation could result in a “30% to 50% impact on top-line revenue” for the casino and it would be “irresponsible” to continue construction “until we understand what the landscape looks like”.