Loot boxes and other gambling-like products inside video games

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Loot boxes and other similar products inside video games can be purchased by players with real-world money to obtain random rewards. These mechanics have been deemed as gambling-like because players are betting money on unknown outcomes. Concerns have been raised about players spending too much money and the normalization of gambling-like behaviors amongst children, who generally cannot legally access more traditional forms of gambling due to age restrictions on participation. Despite these products being relatively novel, many studies have already been conducted considering whether they might be similarly ‘addictive.’ Importantly, monetary spending on loot boxes is linked to problem gambling, suggesting that gambling consumers could also be at risk of loot box-related harms, or that loot box users could be particularly vulnerable to gambling harms. More research is required to better understand this association. Notwithstanding, some countries have already sought to proactively address potential harms through regulation. Multiple potential approaches, ranging from completely restricting access to merely requiring the disclosure of information related to the product, are available. The regulations’ implementation should be regularly assessed to allow for countries to decide whether the rules should be changed based on scientific evidence and whether they should follow another country’s example.