In April 2018, the Belgian Gaming Commission concluded that loot boxes met the legislative definition of a “game of chance”, and are therefore a form of gambling and illegal under Belgian law441. The director of the Gaming Commission, Peter Naessens, stated: “Paying loot boxes are no innocent component of video games which present themselves as a game of skill https://www.onlinecasinoluxembourg.com/testberichte/avalon78/. Players are tempted and misled by them and none of the protective measures for games of chance are applied. Now that it has become clear that children and vulnerable persons in particular are being exposed to this without any protection, the game producers, and also the parties involved, are called upon to put a stop to this practice.”

In April 2018, the Netherlands Gaming Authority declared that some loot boxes would be classed as legal and others as illegal, depending on whether the content was transferable443. It stated that loot boxes where the content was non-transferable were seen as games, and therefore legal, while loot boxes where the content was transferable were seen as gambling, and therefore illegal.

As mentioned in Chapter 3444 when considering online gambling, another development that blurs the boundaries between video gaming and gambling is social gaming. Traditionally, social gaming was used to refer to video games that allow or require social interaction between players, rather than games played in solitude. Over time social gaming has become the term to describe games played on online social media platforms, often with other players. Some social games include gambling-like features such as playing with cards or dice, or slot machine style games.