Are loot boxes really online gambling? Debate rages on
The debate over whether loot boxes are considered online gambling or not has been a long one in the gaming industry, and it’s continuing today as more countries consider how to handle the practice.
Free live service games, ranging from competitive titles like Counter-Strike to open-world role-playing games like Genshin Impact, often make loot boxes available for players to purchase or earn. These loot boxes contain cosmetics may not have any real effect on how the game is played, but still allow players to customize characters, weapons, avatars, and profiles. Others, such as those in gacha games like Genshin Impact, may actually include new characters that dramatically affect gameplay.
Since loot boxes contain randomized items, many consider opening loot boxes to be a form of gambling. You don’t know what you will end up with when you buy into it.
With loot boxes being in a bit of a grey area that pushes the limits of legality in some countries, some games have even changed how loot box systems are allowed to operate. Gamers probably remember when Overwatch removed the ability to purchase loot boxes with real-world money. Instead, Blizzard introduced a battle pass system to its hero shooter as a way to grind for cosmetics. Overwatch brought back its infamous loot boxes, but they were no longer purchasable.
This is just one instance of how the controversial subject has impacted some of the world’s most popular games. And with regulators worldwide taking a closer look at how loot boxes work and whether they constitute online gambling, the debate over the subject isn’t stopping any time soon.
Poland pushes to define loot boxes as gambling
As that debate continues, Poland has become the latest country to move to regular loot boxes. Legislators in the country filed an amendment in December 2025 that defines loot boxes as a form of online gambling, calling the move an attempt to protect young players. A new category in the amendment, “games for virtual goods,” would make any randomized digital item fall within regulations meant for online betting sites and related businesses.
This means that any company offering the loot box mechanic would need a license and would then be required to follow gambling compliance rules in Poland.
“Creators of games with loot box mechanics will need to obtain special permission and introduce age verification to ensure in-game purchases are compliant,” the amendment reads.
Image Credit: Blizzard
In Poland, you must be over 18 years old to partake in gambling legally. This means that minors won’t be able to purchase loot boxes in video games. The amendment continues by detailing that “young people” are often targeted by loot boxes, and that the mechanism is similar enough to online gambling that it justifies regulating the two practices in similar ways.
Many video games do have younger audiences and it would significantly affect both those young players and the games themselves if minors couldn’t play the game at all when a game includes loot boxes that fall within these online gambling considerations. It’s possible that games would have to add localized verification systems to ensure gamers’ ages before playing, or that developers would have to remove loot boxes either altogether or for players in the affected region.
Countries conflicted on loot boxes’ legality
This continued debate has been happening all over Europe, not just Poland. Belgium and the Netherlands have decided that loot boxes are sufficiently similar to online gambling to regulate them similar to how play at online casinos is managed. In Spain, there is currently a bill that proposes loot box regulations ,and the UK has pushed forward links between loot boxes and addiction, leading to parental controls and age ratings.
Elsewhere in the world, China and Japan have banned loot boxes altogether, and the United States has certain states considering regulations around the practice.
Within the gaming community itself, some players have turned against loot boxes as micro-transactions become more prominent across modern video games. The idea of paying money for cosmetics has never been popular with players, except for the serious skin collectors in the Counter-Strike 2 community, where CS2 skins can sell for big money.
[Featured image: Valve]
Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.
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