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Comment by benj111 | Hacker News Reader

"No, you did good! He needs to learn how to handle this and you're right there guiding him."

What's your model for what this is though?

The GP mentions a pub fruit machine. I suppose you could make the case for it being like football stickers.

As I'm writing this though, I'm not entirely sure what makes fruit machine bad, football stickers good. I would guess trading stickers is a social activity, and theres an in build limit to how many stickers you need? Where do loot boxes come out on these measures?

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I have no experience with football stickers, but my experience with Magic: the Gathering is that this sort of thing can absolutely get addictive.

But whichever thing it is, parental guidance is always a good idea. As a parent, you get a better idea of what's going on, and you can provide context for your kid and learn the lessons together. Maybe it was a scam after all, maybe it is addictive, maybe it's okay. But figure it out together.

Another thing to keep in mind: kids in France start drinking at a much younger age than elsewhere, but they do it at home, with half a glass of wine at dinner. The alcohol might still be harmful, but France certainly doesn't have the binge drinking problem that the UK has.

The old era football cards (and tea cards and petrol stickers or coins) where there were no intentionally rare ones, just randomly stuffing a few into packets, were OK. You traded a few in the playground, just about everyone got the set by end of school year.

The modern ones with carefully created low drop rate "rare" cards are lottery scratch card gambling. No better than a fruit machine, or fixed odds thing in the bookies, and in need of regulation.

Same impulses that have led to addictive purchasing until you get the winner. Same cynical house always wins. Personally I put them in the same "clearly gambling" bucket as game loot boxes.

> The modern ones with carefully created low drop rate "rare" cards are lottery scratch card gambling.

I was going to disagree with you because the odds are printed on packs but now that I've thought about it you're absolutely correct. I used to buy basketball card packs and the recent Beckett magazine and see how much each pack was worth, and only now am I seeing the tendencies that caused in me later in life.

I think stated odds are actually where I get uncomfortable. There were always accidentally rare cards, purely from the luck of how packs were filled, and what was rare in one region was probably the common one in another from random chance in distribution. A lot of the card sets had a way to send off 5p or so for the last couple you missed, to fill the album at the end of the year.

Somewhere that morphed into artificial scarcity, and kids everywhere being set up to buy five sets worth of cards, to maybe get a full set.

> I'm not entirely sure what makes fruit machine bad, football stickers good. I would guess trading stickers is a social activity, and theres an in build limit to how many stickers you need? Where do loot boxes come out on these measures?

Is it not simply that the fruit machines are more addictive than the sticker packs?

The reason for this I think is probably the blinking lights and sounds, live control of the interaction (transaction) and environment, versus an inert packet of cards / stickers, that can at best be extremely shiny.

Of course, games are in a position to completely control the transaction and environment for maximum addictiveness, and given the lack of regulation (vs regular gambling) and technology, they can actually go beyond what fruit machines can do (or are allowed to do) to people.

They could, in theory, also make a more "boring" loot box that doesn't quite exploit our psychology as mercilessly, just a transaction. And then it would be more like sticker albums. Provided that the game allows free trading of any items in the loot box. Because that means you actually get something in return that isn't just a consumable.

But games will inevitably choose for the exploitative option, therefore yeah, regulate the hell out of it. It's not really a huge loss to culture or anything, nor is there IMO any fundamental reason why it is okay for people to make money that way.

> As I'm writing this though, I'm not entirely sure what makes fruit machine bad, football stickers good.

Slot machines pay out real money. It helps contributing to the illusion that you can recover from your losses by playing more. Football stickers, loot boxes, etc... make it clear that the money is spent.

Perhaps. Someone with a problem could easily convince themselves football stickers (the rare ones) are a sound investment.

And where would 2p machines [1] fit into this? It's acceptable to let your kids go on those and they have real money prizes.

That's not to say you're wrong though, because as I said I'm not really sure.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=su5xcK9FhRw

You can clearly see the odds are against you with the 2p waterfalls and such like. The side exits ensure the odds are with the house - you can point them out and show it's a rigged game. Opportunity to dive off into risk/reward and the unbalance of economics where some get disproportionate reward for the same inputs, perhaps? Or show how the house always wins. :)

Those aren't going to break the bank though, or start a habit, so a harmless way to let the kids get rid of parent's pocket of excess coppers.

Loot boxes for tradeable items move away from this. My kids want to open cases in CSGO because they think they'll win a skin they can sell for a lot of money. Winning money is the motivator.

Bingo. Games that let you trade actually are in legally shakier territory because of the cash-out potential.

I think this thread is missing the main reason why gambling dangerous: it can turn money into more money. The blinking lights and the Skinner box pyschology only play a supporting role to the main attraction: which is the belief that you can walk out richer than you walked in. This particularly plagues the poor, either because they are desperate or lack the financial accumen, and is the main reason why it is regulated. In the UK where sports gambling is legal, it is widely considered a blight on the lower class.

The fact the next roll could win back everything I've lost tonight AND make a profit on top, is far more dangerous than the next pull being merely able to finally get me that coveted Overwatch skin.

Hence why colloquially everyone calls loot boxes gambling, but no one has been able to make a strong legal case for why Overwatch loot boxes constitute gambling. If anything, Counterstrike is in the worse legal position and has had ACTUAL gambling scandals due to the high resale value of certain weapon skins.

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