{"id":5221,"date":"2020-06-10T08:03:40","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T08:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/?p=5221"},"modified":"2020-06-10T08:03:40","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T08:03:40","slug":"uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/","title":{"rendered":"UK&#8217;s Verdict on the Legality of Loot Boxes May Be on the Horizon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the past couple of years, loot boxes have been a rather controversial topic owing to the striking similarities that they share with gambling. In several jurisdictions across the world, loot boxes have been <strong>subjected to a lot of scrutiny with some countries eventually deciding that they are indeed gambling.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The United Kingdom is one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uk-parliament-wants-loot-boxes-to-be-regulated-as-gambling\/\">places where loot boxes are still being discussed<\/a> and it seems that discussion may be about to end. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/games\/2020\/jun\/07\/uk-could-class-loot-boxes-as-gambling-to-protect-children\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">local media reports<\/a>, the in-game items may soon be reclassified as gambling products citing claims and concerns that they are teaching children how to gamble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, nothing has been cast in stone just yet. Before that decision arrives, there has to be an investigation \u2013 the country&#8217;s<strong> Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sports is already looking into this<\/strong>. The body is set to launch an investigation or rather a call for evidence to prove that loot boxes have indeed been promoting gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the past several years, loot boxes have grown in popularity and can now be <strong>found in several popular video game titles including FIFA<\/strong> which is perhaps the most popular video game series in the country. Other equally popular video games such as Star Wars and other battle royale-style games have also been offering loot boxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, as it stands,<strong> up to 71 percent <\/strong>of the video games on popular gaming portal Steam have some kind of loot box offering. This eventually raised some eyebrows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>&#8220;They are a virtually speculative commodity that only help to normalise and encourage young people to take a chance. All too often this will lead to youngsters developing an addiction to gambling.&#8221;<\/p><cite>Labour MP Carolyn Harris.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"what-next-for-video-game-developers\">What Next for Video Game Developers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Needless to say, game developers used loot boxes as a golden goose of sorts and there is certainly a lot of money that they got from the feature. Ever since the debate on whether loot boxes constitute gambling or not began, many of the video game developers caught on to the fact that time had begun to run out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That said, some developers have already worked out a system that will ideally replace loot boxes while being more consumer-friendly. Known as Battle Passes on some games, these <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/battle-passes-are-replacing-loot-boxes-but-theyre-not-necessarily-a-better-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">alternative systems<\/a> should ideally fix all of the shortcomings of loot boxes while at the same time giving the video game companies the opportunity to make more money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a high chance that the UK might enforce the ban on the loot boxes and it will be very interesting to see how that decision shapes the video game and gambling industries in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the past couple of years, loot boxes have been a rather controversial topic owing to the striking similarities that they share with gambling. In several jurisdictions across the world, loot boxes have been subjected to a lot of scrutiny with some countries eventually deciding that they are indeed gambling. The United Kingdom is one [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[448,28,449,192,178,173],"class_list":["post-5221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legislation","tag-battle-pass","tag-gambling","tag-investigation","tag-law","tag-loot-boxes","tag-ukgc"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>UK&#039;s Verdict on the Legality of Loot Boxes May Be on the Horizon - Real Money Gambling News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UK&#039;s Verdict on the Legality of Loot Boxes May Be on the Horizon - Real Money Gambling News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For the past couple of years, loot boxes have been a rather controversial topic owing to the striking similarities that they share with gambling. In several jurisdictions across the world, loot boxes have been subjected to a lot of scrutiny with some countries eventually deciding that they are indeed gambling. The United Kingdom is one [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Real Money Gambling News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-06-10T08:03:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/loot-boxes-banned.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Michael Naydenov\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michael Naydenov\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"UK's Verdict on the Legality of Loot Boxes May Be on the Horizon - Real Money Gambling News","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"UK's Verdict on the Legality of Loot Boxes May Be on the Horizon - Real Money Gambling News","og_description":"For the past couple of years, loot boxes have been a rather controversial topic owing to the striking similarities that they share with gambling. In several jurisdictions across the world, loot boxes have been subjected to a lot of scrutiny with some countries eventually deciding that they are indeed gambling. The United Kingdom is one [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/","og_site_name":"Real Money Gambling News","article_published_time":"2020-06-10T08:03:40+00:00","og_image":[{"width":800,"height":400,"url":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/loot-boxes-banned.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Michael Naydenov","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Michael Naydenov","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/","url":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/","name":"UK's Verdict on the Legality of Loot Boxes May Be on the Horizon - Real Money Gambling News","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/loot-boxes-banned.jpg","datePublished":"2020-06-10T08:03:40+00:00","dateModified":"2020-06-10T08:03:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f42a7648796de6b90d526d28b1230bf1"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/loot-boxes-banned.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/09\/loot-boxes-banned.jpg","width":800,"height":400,"caption":"loot-boxes-banned"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uks-verdict-on-the-legality-of-loot-boxes-may-be-on-the-horizon\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"UK&#8217;s Verdict on the Legality of Loot Boxes May Be on the Horizon"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/","name":"Real Money Gambling News","description":"Your #1 trusted source of independent gambling information.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f42a7648796de6b90d526d28b1230bf1","name":"Michael Naydenov","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/52b854c118521c9577b8c81a3b50a4df?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/52b854c118521c9577b8c81a3b50a4df?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Michael Naydenov"},"description":"Michael lives apart from the rest of the team with his current dwellings in Berlin, Germany. Serious and professional about his writing, Michael has been soaking up much of the German\u2019s rigor and pouring it back into his work. As someone who loves to play various games himself, he has unique insight in not only the legal and business side of gaming, but also how gamers feel when they actually get to play. This is why we find Michael\u2019s language far more relatable. Having Michael here definitely adds character to our editorial strategy","url":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/author\/michaeln\/"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5221"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5223,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5221\/revisions\/5223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}