Gambling is very different from csgo cases and pokemon cards. One of the insidious aspects of gambling is that people can delude themselves that they can actually get rich from it
I'm a former gambling addict, it is very very difficult for me to lose the amount of money I have lost at craps or blackjack playing magic the gathering.
I don't think we can classify all variable reward systems as gambling. Even competitive online chess with elo and matchmaking could be classified as gambling.
There already is, you gotta have a credit card to buy lootboxes. And while I am not aware of the situation all across the globe, in most places you gotta be 18+ to get a credit card. For a debit one you might qualify a couple years earlier in the US (and probably some other countries), but an easy solution would be for Steam to just ping the bank for info on the age of the customer. However, I am not sure if that would be easily possible, especially if we are talking about API-like approaches.
The only current workaround is using gift cards, but I somehow doubt that kids resort mostly to that instead of using their parents’ credit cards. But at that point, it is on parents, because there are all sorts of ways to solve the problem on an individual level (e.g., get a card with a low limit just for steam, use a paypal account that you have to manually log into for every transaction on steam and don’t give your kid the credentials, etc).
Unfortunately, there is no way one could feasibly stop some parents from just handing their kid a credit card and mentally checking out. And any other solution to the problem that won’t massively inconvenience adult Steam customers seems to be difficult to imagine.
But at that point it comes down to parents.
I feel most of the “children gambling” people just hate the idea of loot boxes in general, which is fine, but the argument is stronger if it’s honest.
That's true. thank you for your perspective
> Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elements to be present: consideration (an amount wagered), risk (chance), and a prize.[1] The outcome of the wager is often immediate, such as a single roll of dice, a spin of a roulette wheel, or a horse crossing the finish line, but longer time frames are also common, allowing wagers on the outcome of a future sports contest or even an entire sports season.
CS cases ticks all of the boxes. I'm really curious what your definition of gambling is.
This is very much unlike slot machines and blackjack which can and do take over people's lives.
As someone who was once addicted to these games, they should absolutely be illegal. We really should not allow corporations to print money with drug dealer methods.
Also, the reason I'm against banning such games is because when you look at all the things we find fun, you will be sad to see that a lot of them just boil down to variable reward. That variable reward aspect is what makes it fun.
You would be wrong. Even chess has variance, the better player does not always win.
Then there are games that actually integrate chance as a mechanic and are still competitive.
If you have no skill or training in chess, there's basically zero chance of you winning.
technically yes. But not all gambling is illegal. because the legal definition of gambling is more precise.
I think that's the part that is forgotten in the discussions because we conflate the casual definition with the legal one.
Do you really think TCGs are not gambling? Guess people open MTG and Pokemon packs just for "fun" then.
Why would holo cards, foils, and mythic rares exist? Black Lotus is just a piece of cardboard after all.