Are Loot Boxes a Form of Gambling?

Not legally, in most places, but yes in the way that actually matters for how the brain responds to them. A loot box asks you to pay before you know what you are getting, at fixed odds you cannot influence, which is the exact structure researchers use to define a game of chance. [drummond-sauer-2018-lootbox] Multiple independent studies have since found that how much a player spends on loot boxes tracks the severity of their problem gambling, which is a stronger claim than a shared vocabulary. [zendle-cairns-2018-lootbox] This piece covers what a loot box actually is, what the research shows, why the mechanic is built to feel the way it does, and what to do if spending on it has stopped feeling like a choice. Our behavioural addictions pillar covers where gaming and gambling sit as recognised conditions more broadly.

What exactly is a loot box?

A loot box is a bundle of in-game items, purchased with real money or with currency earned through play, whose specific contents are unknown until it is opened. That is the whole definition, and it is worth holding onto, because it is what separates a loot box from an ordinary purchase: buying a named sword for a fixed price is a transaction, buying a box that might contain that sword, a duplicate, or nothing you wanted is a wager.

The contents can be purely cosmetic (a character skin, an emote, a colour variant) or functional (a weapon, a card, a character that changes how the game plays). Both versions use the identical randomised mechanic, which matters for the next section.

Why “it’s just cosmetic” doesn’t settle the question

Because the part of the mechanic that resembles gambling is the randomisation, not the prize. A box that can only ever contain a skin still makes you pay upfront, at odds you cannot see or change, opened one at a time in the hope the next one lands the rare item instead of a duplicate you already own. Researchers who have compared loot boxes with games of chance describe them as sharing the specific structural features that make gambling behave the way it does, independent of what the reward turns out to be worth. [drummond-sauer-2018-lootbox]

“It’s just cosmetic” is really an answer to a different question, whether the item has real-world value, and a fair one: a digital hat cannot be cashed out the way a jackpot can, which is exactly why most regulators do not classify loot boxes as gambling. But value and mechanism are separate questions, and the folk assumption collapses them into one. A mechanic can be harmless in what it pays out and still be built to behave like a wager in how it is bought.

What does the actual research show?

A large-scale survey of thousands of players found that spending on loot boxes was linked to problem-gambling severity in the same people, and that this link was stronger than the one for spending on ordinary in-game purchases with no randomised element. [zendle-cairns-2018-lootbox] That second detail is the important control: if loot boxes were simply catching heavy spenders in general, spending on any in-game item should predict problem gambling about equally well. It did not.

Two later reviews pooling many separate studies found the same pattern hold up. A meta-analysis reported a moderate, consistent relationship between loot box spending and problem gambling across the studies it combined. [garea-2021-lootbox-meta] A systematic review the following year reported an average effect of similar size for problem gambling, and a larger one again for problem video gaming, across the great majority of the studies it examined. [spicer-2022-lootbox-review]

None of this proves that loot boxes cause gambling problems on their own. The studies are correlational, and the honest reading holds two possibilities at once: loot box spending may cultivate gambling-like habits, and people already prone to problem gambling may be drawn to loot boxes in the first place. Most researchers in the area now think both operate together rather than either alone.

Why loot boxes are built to keep you opening them

Two design principles do the actual work, and neither is unique to games. The first is variable-ratio reinforcement: a reward delivered on an unpredictable schedule produces behaviour that is far more persistent and harder to walk away from than the same reward delivered on a fixed one. This is one of the most robust findings in behavioural psychology, and it is the same principle a slot machine runs on.

The second is the near-miss effect. An outcome that falls just short of a win, such as unwrapping an item one tier below the rare one you wanted, is experienced very differently from a plain loss. Brain-imaging research on gambling found that near-misses recruit reward-related circuitry in a pattern that resembles an actual win, and that they increase the motivation to keep playing rather than discourage it. [clark-2009-nearmiss] Loot boxes routinely surface this kind of near-miss feedback, showing you the rare tier you almost hit, which is not incidental to the design.

Naming this is not an excuse for a specific person’s spending, and it is not a claim that every player is at risk. It is a reason to treat the mechanic, not just the person, as part of what needs managing, because the design is doing real work against ordinary self-control.

Where the line is: is this spending a problem?

The amount spent is a weak guide by itself, because the same figure can be an unremarkable hobby cost for one household and a serious problem for another. What distinguishes the two is behavioural rather than financial.

For a younger player specifically, our guide to Roblox and kids covers the platform-level controls in detail, and is my gaming a problem covers the wider question of gaming displacing other things. The near-miss mechanism above runs through ordinary gambling too, which our piece on the psychology of the lottery covers from that angle.

What actually helps a parent or player worried about this

Start with the account rather than the argument. Most consoles, app stores and games let you require a password or PIN for every purchase, set a monthly spending cap, or remove a stored card entirely, and a control set once does more than a rule that has to be remembered under pressure every time.

Review a purchase history or a bank statement together, calmly, rather than asking someone to estimate from memory what they spent. Memory is reliably wrong in the direction that avoids conflict, and a real number is the only thing a decision can be built on.

Ask about chasing specifically, using that word. “Did you keep buying because you were sure the next one would be it” is a more useful question than “how much did you spend,” because it names the mechanism rather than the amount, and it is the answer that tells you whether this is ordinary enjoyment or something that has stopped being a choice.

When to seek help

Speak to a doctor if spending on loot boxes has continued past a planned limit, has been hidden, or has been funded by money meant for something else, and those three are worth acting on regardless of the total amount involved. Go sooner if debt is building because of it, or if someone close to you has already raised it.

If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, seek help now rather than waiting. Contact your local emergency services or a crisis helpline.

How MyFreud can help

The pattern that matters here (spending that outruns a plan, purchases kept quiet, one more box after a loss) is much easier to see written down over weeks than it is to recall from memory in the moment. Daily tracking in MyFreud turns a vague sense that spending has crept up into a record with dates attached, which is the kind of detail a doctor or therapist can actually work with if the conversation above needs to happen.

Download MyFreud and start today: App Store or Google Play.