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Valve compares its loot boxes to Labubus in lawsuit defense
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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Technology
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Claw machines are gambling. Those coin machines that you get a sticker or a plastic spider out of is gambling. Kids having been gambling for decades. Hell even coin pushers is gambling.
I feel like we need to fully define gambling before any of this is settled. I believe anything where you give money for some kind of return but have a chance of recieving nothing back, then that is gambling. If you are guaranteed to get something for your money then thats not gambling. Thats just a purchase.
Any useful discussion of gambling needs to take into account its potential and actual scale of addiction, along with degree of harm. Not everything that falls under the "technically it's gambling" definition is created equal.
So yes, claw machines are gambling -- but I don't think very many people are wasting hundreds or thousands of dollars on them every month. They're a little harder to constantly have in your pocket as well.
I cannot agree with this at all. If you're guaranteed a piece of candy, but on top of that you have a 0.0001% chance of getting a million dollars, then buying that candy for $100 is absolutely gambling and not a purchase.
There has been a lot of posts about how people order a single SSD from amazon and end up with a whole box of SSDs. And if i go to amazon and order just a single SSD in hopes amazon screws up and sends me a full box instead, then i just gambled.
Should we go after amazon for encouraging gambling?
Yep. There are too many people who don't understand addiction, and think that gambling is the root cause problem, rather than one of many systems that preys on addiction disorders.
The reality of addiction is that it will always find something to fulfill it without treatment, and banning or regulating every trend of collectibles that pops up is not an actual solution. Banning or regulating specific structures that intentionally prey on addiction is important.
Too many people mistake their feeling-based objection to gambling that was inherited from the protestant moral objections, with actually being about solving predation on addiction.
I honestly am not sure this is only about addiction. Instead i think this is mostly about parents who dont monitor their childs activites and want aomeone to blame for their child spending thousands of dollars on a video game.
I mean gambling in general, not just loot boxes or TCGs. Gambling is not a bad thing. Gambling addiction is, but it's bad because it's addiction.
gambling is still fundamentally bad because the very concept is predatory and harmful
I disagree. I'm not much of a gambler ... never done anything but nickel slots. I put in $5 and generally get about a half-hour of entertainment. If I get above break-even, I cash out and am done. I got a free lunch out of it at a Montana gas station in college.
It's generally more like $5.15 than $10, but on a road trip, who doesn't like free food?
I've been to Vegas once. Same deal. Put $5 in a nickel slot. This time, I got free booze, so even though I lost all of my $5, I still came out ahead.
I am very much an addictive personality, but for some reason, I never caught the gambling bug. So I'm throwing stones at a glass house while residing in one ... in my case, I'm envious of anyone who can have just one or two beers.
If you're gambling to try to fix your economic situation or recoup prior losses, you're no longer seeking entertainment. But if you know your limits and stick with them (something I absolutely cannot do with alcohol), I don't see how spending $30 gambling for a few hours is materially different than going to a movie and buying popcorn. You can't get a soda included in that $30 these days.
My college roommate is a bit more adventurous. Both of us were there with our fiancees to see Penn & Teller, and he was more of a $25 buy-in blackjack player. He won enough to pay for their entire trip on his last hand before the airport shuttle. And then didn't do any gambling at the airport.
To say that gambling as a concept is inherently predatory doesn't square with my experience. But instilling it in kids via video games definitely is.
How so?