Widespread Suspected Illegal Advertising of Paid Loot Boxes and Social Casino Games in Belgium: Empowered by the EU Digital Services Act to Assess Compliance Using Meta’s Ad Repository

Paid loot boxes and social casino mechanics are gambling-like products inside video games that provide random rewards in exchange for real-world money. These products may cause harm to vulnerable consumers, e.g., children and adults experiencing gambling harms. Most countries do not presently regulate these mechanics as gambling because the random rewards do not possess real-world monetary value as defined by law. Uniquely, Belgium's gambling law does not have that requirement. Paid loot boxes and social casinos therefore constitute unlicensed and illegal gambling. Providing these products is a criminal offence. However, this 'ban' has not been enforced due to the regulator lacking resources, so these products remain widely available. We investigated whether, beyond failing to remove these products from the Belgian version of app stores, companies are also paying to advertise games containing them on social media to specifically attract Belgian users, which would constitute an additional crime of advertising illegal gambling. We gained data access through the EU Digital Services Act, which requires very large online platforms (e.g., Instagram and Facebook) to provide repositories for all advertising shown and associated audience demographic data. Concerningly, 172 popular games with illegal paid loot boxes and social casino mechanics were widely advertised in Belgium. We studied 1,574 ads, which were viewed over 4.5 million times by Belgian users, including conceivably 544,000 times by under-21s (estimated based on our hypothetical assumptions), who are not legally permitted to gamble online in Belgium. Policymakers should hold social media platforms and app stores accountable for conducting effective content moderation and ensuring illegal games and ads are not available to local users. More data access opportunities should be mandated by law in the EU and beyond to aid research and policy enforcement.