This thread is going to be a bit of an opinion post regarding the viability of organized crime in the future .

I've seen a few posts on this forum before which claimed that organized crime ( particularly traditional organized crime ) will probably be no longer viable in the future . While I agree that so called traditional organized crime groups may very well die out , I disagree with the reasoning behind these particular posts , which claim that this phenomenon will come to pass mainly due to the legalization of certain OC markets .

To be honest I don't see very many signs of the " whitening " of markets and services that are the domain of organized crime groups . Of course it's a fact that gambling law has become more liberal compared to ( say ) four generations ago and it's also true that drug policy concerning cannabis has become softer in many jurisdictions in the past few years .

All that said I see no signs of so many currently illegal markets and services becoming legal in the foreseeable future . For example I'm not aware of any government in the world considering the legalization of hard drugs . Portugal's decriminalization of all types of drug use notwithstanding , I think it'll be a long time before politicians will start voting to legalize hard drugs .

It's also worth mentioning that some legal products will probably become all the more traded on the black market . Tobacco products are a perfect example to bring up , since basically all governments in the developed world have been making it all the much harder to turn a profit selling tobacco products legitimately in the past few decades . I mean there is no other industry I know of that is literally forced to advertise against itself , which ( among other things ) makes being a legitimate actor in the tobacco trade a sucker's game . This ( more or less ) global anti tobacco campaign shows no signs of slowing , so I expect OC groups will continue to reap vast profits from it for the foreseeable future .

There are also country specific rackets that will probably continue to be viable . Take the legal status of prostitution and bookmaking in the USA for instance . While I've heard that ( bookmaking in particular ) is expected to be legalized all around the US in the next four years , it's not like this issue has attracted half the amount of congressional attention that cannabis legalization has . And I really see no evidence of prostitution becoming legal all across the USA any time soon either .

There are also less lucrative rackets ( like arms trafficking ) that will most likely still be viable in the foreseeable future . All in all I see the decline of traditional organized crime groups much more as a result of other factors ( such as a great amount of press ) as opposed to the purported whitening of the illegal economy .