Loot Boxes Explained: Why Some Countries Treat a Video Game Feature Like Gambling

In November 2017, a single comment posted on Reddit by Electronic Arts' community team became the most downvoted comment in the site's history. Players had been complaining that unlocking famous characters such as Darth Vader in Star Wars Battlefront II would take an enormous amount of playing time, unless they paid real money to speed things up through randomised crates. EA's reply explained that the intent was "to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes".

The internet did not take it well. The comment collected hundreds of thousands of downvotes. Days later, just before the game's launch, EA temporarily switched off the ability to buy in-game currency. Politicians in several countries began asking questions. A feature that had quietly spread through the industry for years was suddenly front-page news.

What a loot box actually is

A loot box is a virtual item that contains a random selection of other virtual items. You might earn one by playing, or buy one with real money, either directly or through an in-game currency. When you open it, you get something. You just don't know what.

Sometimes the contents are purely cosmetic: a new outfit, a weapon skin, a victory dance. Sometimes they affect gameplay, such as stronger players in a football game or more powerful characters in a role-playing game. The rarest items might appear in a tiny fraction of boxes, which is precisely what makes them desirable.

Industry names vary. Publishers have called them crates, packs, cases or, in one memorable phrase used by an EA executive in front of British MPs in 2019, "surprise mechanics". Japanese mobile games built an entire genre around the idea, known as gacha, after the capsule toy machines found in shops across Japan.

Why critics call it gambling

The comparison with gambling is not hard to see. You pay money for a chance at a prize whose value is uncertain. The opening animations are often bright, noisy and dramatic, much like a slot machine. Near misses, where you almost get the item you wanted, keep you trying. And because the price of each box is usually small, the total spent can creep up without players noticing.

There is also a question of who is playing. Many games with loot boxes are hugely popular with teenagers and children, who are generally protected from gambling by law. If loot boxes are a form of gambling, critics argue, then selling them to minors is a serious problem.

Publishers reply that loot boxes are different in one crucial way: you always get something, and in most games you can't cash out your winnings for real money. In legal terms, many gambling laws require a prize of monetary value. A virtual hat that can't be sold, they argue, doesn't qualify.

How countries have responded

The legal answers vary widely, and some of them have changed over time.

Belgium took the hardest line. In 2018, its Gaming Commission concluded that paid loot boxes in several major games met the country's legal definition of gambling. Publishers responded by disabling or removing paid loot boxes for Belgian players in a number of titles. Enforcement has been patchy, and researchers have since found that many games remained available with loot boxes intact, but Belgium is still the clearest example of a country treating paid loot boxes as illegal gambling.

The Netherlands went through a dramatic back-and-forth. Its gambling regulator took action against loot boxes whose contents could be traded, and a Dutch court upheld a large fine against EA over packs in its football games. In 2022, however, the country's highest administrative court overturned that decision, concluding that the packs were not a separate game of chance under Dutch law.

The United Kingdom examined the issue during a broad review of gambling laws. In 2022, the government decided not to classify loot boxes as gambling, instead asking the games industry to introduce its own protections, such as restricting purchases by under-18s without parental consent and improving transparency.

China introduced rules in 2017 requiring publishers to disclose the odds of obtaining items from randomised boxes. In the same year, Apple updated its App Store guidelines to require apps offering loot boxes to show the odds before purchase. Google later did the same for its store. Disclosure doesn't make loot boxes less random, but it does let players see how unlikely the rarest prizes really are.

Japan had acted even earlier. In 2012, its consumer authority effectively banned a particularly aggressive practice called kompu gacha, in which players had to collect a full set of random items to unlock an even rarer reward.

What research says

Researchers have tried to work out whether loot boxes actually harm people, or simply look worrying. One of the most cited studies, published by David Zendle and Paul Cairns in 2018, surveyed thousands of gamers and found a link between how much people spent on loot boxes and the severity of problem gambling symptoms. Many later studies, in different countries and age groups, have found similar associations.

The key word is association. These studies show that people who spend heavily on loot boxes are more likely to have gambling problems. They don't prove that loot boxes cause those problems. It may be that people already prone to problem gambling are drawn to loot boxes, or that both behaviours share underlying causes. Either way, the pattern suggests that loot boxes are disproportionately attractive to people who are vulnerable to gambling harm.

There is also a revealing commercial detail. In many free-to-play games, a large share of revenue comes from a small minority of players, often nicknamed "whales" in the industry. If a significant portion of that minority is struggling with compulsive spending, the business model has an ethical problem regardless of what the law says.

The fairness question

Beyond gambling, loot boxes raise a simpler question about fair play. In competitive games, if randomised paid boxes contain items that improve performance, players with more money can buy an advantage. Many players call this "pay to win", and it was at the heart of the Battlefront II backlash. Purely cosmetic loot boxes avoid that problem, which is one reason many developers have shifted towards them, or replaced boxes entirely with direct purchases and seasonal "battle passes" where you can see what you are buying.

What players and parents can do

Check the odds. Where disclosure is required, look for the published drop rates. Seeing that an item has, say, a fraction of a percent chance of appearing tends to cool the urge to chase it.

Use spending limits. Consoles, app stores and many platforms let account holders require approval for purchases or set monthly limits. For children's accounts, these settings are one of the most effective safeguards available.

Watch the language. If a game constantly offers limited-time boxes, countdown timers and flashy openings, it is designed to encourage impulse spending. Naming that design helps resist it.

Talk about it. Many young players don't think of loot boxes as gambling. A calm conversation about chance, value and how much has been spent over a month can be more effective than an outright ban.

The bigger picture

Loot boxes sit at the uncomfortable intersection of entertainment, psychology and money. For many players, opening a box is a harmless bit of excitement. For a smaller group, it can become something closer to compulsion, and the industry earns a disproportionate share of its money from exactly that group.

Whether the law calls it gambling or not, the question underneath is the same one raised by that infamous Reddit comment: are games designed to give players a sense of achievement, or to make them pay for the feeling? The answer, increasingly, depends on how much regulators, parents and players are willing to ask.