Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Illegal and unregulated online gambling generates an estimated $5.9 trillion a year — making it the third-largest economic flow on Earth, right behind the US and China in GDP terms. In this episode of the Travis Makes Friends Podcast, I sit down with Ismail Vali, President of Gaming Compliance International (GCI), to break down how organized crime infiltrated the global online gambling industry and why it matters to every American.
Ismail's journey is wild: from a scholarship at Oxford University, to becoming the first internet analyst at Solomon Smith Barney in the World Trade Center, to running some of the biggest names in online poker and sports betting — including Poker Stars — before walking away from a fortune when he sensed something was wrong. That instinct eventually led him to found Yield Sec and later GCI, companies built to monitor, police, and optimize the online gambling marketplace worldwide.
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Illegal and unregulated online gambling generates an estimated $5.9 trillion a year — making it the third-largest economic flow on Earth, right behind the US and China in GDP terms. In this episode of the Travis Makes Friends Podcast, I sit down with Ismail Vali, President of Gaming Compliance International (GCI), to break down how organized crime infiltrated the global online gambling industry and why it matters to every American.
Ismail's journey is wild: from a scholarship at Oxford University, to becoming the first internet analyst at Solomon Smith Barney in the World Trade Center, to running some of the biggest names in online poker and sports betting — including Poker Stars — before walking away from a fortune when he sensed something was wrong. That instinct eventually led him to found Yield Sec and later GCI, companies built to monitor, police, and optimize the online gambling marketplace worldwide.
If you like this, click subscribe, like and share with a friend.
Follow Travis on:
Instagram: @travischappell
TikTok: @traviscchappell
Facebook: /traviscchappell
Twitter: @traviscchappell
