Loot Boxes as Gateway Drug: Findings from a Two-Wave Longitudinal Survey

A two-wave longitudinal survey of Danish citizens aged 10 to 25 examines whether loot box consumption predicts later gambling behaviour, a question that has received little empirical attention despite widespread concern about loot boxes as a form of pseudo-gambling. The study uses a stratified random sample drawn from the Danish Civil Registration System, with 4,771 respondents at the first timepoint in late spring 2024 and a final panel of 2,105 participants who completed the same questionnaire again in late spring 2025. The sample had a mean age of 17.2 years and was 56 percent female, and survey responses were supplemented with register data on background variables, including socioeconomic status. Because most outcomes were categorical, the analysis relied on ordinal logistic regression, controlling for background characteristics and prior gambling behaviour.

The findings show a clear and statistically significant association between loot box consumption at the first timepoint and subsequent gambling. The association is strongest for online casino gambling and skin gambling, while social media use emerges as a stronger predictor of esports betting and traditional sports betting. Loot box consumption's predictive power overlaps substantially with age (18 to 21), male gender, and earlier gambling behaviour, which accounts for much of the observed relationship.

The authors argue that these patterns, together with the limited explanatory power of socioeconomic background, indicate that loot box-related gambling risk is better understood as a broader youth-cultural phenomenon than as a problem confined to socially vulnerable young people. They suggest this framing points toward a mainstream rather than at-risk-group concern, and that differences across gambling forms can help identify the specific youth-cultural contexts in which problematic gambling emerges, informing more targeted prevention efforts.