Gambling-like Mechanics in Video Games: A Challenging Regulatory Framework

This paper examines the regulatory treatment of gambling-like mechanics in video games, arguing that existing legal frameworks, designed for conventional commercial environments, are poorly suited to the repeated micro-decisions and personalised interfaces that characterise modern game monetisation. It traces how the boundary between gambling and gaming has eroded as monetisation models shifted toward mobile devices, extending scrutiny beyond loot boxes to intermediate virtual currencies, battle passes, daily login rewards, and behaviourally driven dynamic pricing. The authors identify a structural grey area in which these mechanics often fall outside legal definitions of gambling, while a 2024 French Supreme Court ruling confirmed that digital games are licensed rather than sold, shifting litigation toward continuous conformity obligations and unfair contract terms.

The analysis surveys divergent national responses to loot boxes. Belgium classified them as illegal gambling in 2018, the Netherlands conditioned their lawfulness on odds disclosure and the absence of cash-out mechanisms, Brazil and Australia adopted age-based restrictions, and a New York proceeding against Valve was initiated in 2025. The paper notes that unilateral, unenforced bans prove vulnerable to circumvention. France's SREN Act of May 2024 created a three-year experimental category, "games with monetisable digital objects" (JONUM), requiring prior declaration, age verification, spending limitation tools, and reward caps, which the authors present as an unprecedented attempt to regulate the space between gaming and gambling.

At the European level, the Digital Services Act already prohibits interfaces that impair decisional autonomy, while the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act, with a legislative proposal expected in late 2026, is expected to prioritise addictive mechanics and may include a strict prohibition on randomised purchases for minors. The PEGI classification reform of March 2026 integrates monetisation mechanics into age ratings for the first time. The authors conclude that these layers, hard law, national experiments, and sectoral self-regulation, form an emerging co-regulatory model whose coherence remains unbuilt, with considerable compliance costs for publishers. The authors, both practising lawyers advising industry clients, disclose this as a potential conflict of interest.