Colombia’s Gambling Industry Now Accounts for More Than 2% of GDP
Colombia’s gambling industry now represents more than 2% of the country’s gross domestic product after the 2026 World Cup fueled record betting activity across the country. National accounts from DANE show that entertainment as a whole has practically doubled in size since before the pandemic, climbing roughly 100% between late 2019 and early 2026 while Colombia’s overall GDP grew just 16% over that same stretch, pushing entertainment’s share of the economy from under 3% before the pandemic to 4.7% today, ahead of construction and mining.
How Colombia’s gambling industry became an economic driver
Gambling sits at the center of that transformation, since Corficolombiana’s analysis found that production tied to this activity jumped 444% in current pesos and 314% in real terms between 2019 and 2024, expanding its share within total entertainment production from roughly a fifth to about half.
“More than 80% of entertainment’s recent growth would be explained by gambling,” Corficolombiana’s economic research team said the sector now accounts for more than 2% of Colombia’s GDP, up from less than 0.5% before the pandemic. The team said this growth has pushed gambling ahead of construction, civil works, coal, and coffee. This shift traces back to Law 1753 of 2015, which formalized online gambling and let the activity expand rapidly through digital channels, growing from 18 licensed companies by 2019 into a market that transaction tracking has made considerably easier to monitor and control over time.
The World Cup itself supercharged that trend even further, since Fecoljuegos, the national gambling federation, estimates that Colombians placed around 122 million bets during the tournament, with monthly betting volume reaching approximately US$1.67 billion, and some platforms recording more than 750,000 active users during a single match between the Colombian and Portuguese national teams.
Why gambling revenue and betting volume differ
Reading these figures accurately requires real caution, since several official sources measure completely different things despite all describing the same industry. DANE reports that gambling-related production climbed from about US$3.15 billion in 2019 to more than US$17.01 billion in 2024, while DIAN, Colombia’s tax authority, recorded gross gambling revenue of roughly US$1.04 billion in 2019, rising to US$2.89 billion in 2024, and the industry itself projects online gambling operators will earn closer to US$1.18 billion in 2026.
That gap exists because the total money users wager never equals what operators actually keep. Operators return a considerable share to players as prize winnings. The World Cup period shows this clearly: Fecoljuegos estimated that US$1.67 billion in monthly betting volume generated only about US$94.5 million in monthly revenue for operators after they paid out winnings.
“Variables like production, volume wagered, and operators’ effective income answer different questions,” Corficolombiana noted, a distinction that matters directly for policy, since Colombia’s National Government has proposed taxing deposits users make on online betting platforms specifically, a measure the report suggests could generate roughly US$630.3 million in revenue collection during 2027.
The economic benefits and risks of gambling growth
Beyond the fiscal debate, this rapid expansion carries consequences that go well past tax collection, since rising betting activity raises genuine concerns around responsible gambling, gambling addiction, and illegal operations that Colombia still struggles to fully control.
Coljuegos, the entity overseeing gambling regulation, estimated in 2023 that tax evasion tied to gambling exceeded US$37.8 million, reporting hundreds of investigations into unauthorized operations alongside orders to block illegal betting websites entirely. Even so, formal regulation has generated tangible public benefits too, since Coljuegos transfers directed toward healthcare grew from US$127 million in 2019 to nearly US$127 million in 2025. Looking ahead, Corficolombiana projects the entertainment sector will grow at least 5.8% in 2026, marking six consecutive years as Colombia’s most dynamic economic activity, and if that estimate holds, entertainment would reach 4.8% of GDP while gambling alone approaches 3%, reinforcing that Colombia now depends on wagering revenue in a way it never did before the pandemic reshaped how people spend and gamble their money.