Games lure teenagers into online gambling
More than 400,000 British teenagers have been lured into under-aged casino-style gambling through video gaming, an investigation has revealed. The children, aged 13 to 18, have been able to gamble winnings from gaming on games of chance. This has been made possible by the creation of virtual items called “skins”. Now Parent Zone is calling for urgent action to close the loophole that allows skins to serve as a digital currency that can be gambled and cashed out.
MORE than 400,000 British teenagers have been lured into under-aged casino-style gambling through video games, an investigation has revealed.
The children, aged 13 to 18, have been able to gamble winnings from their gaming on websites where they can bet them for cash on games of chance.
The online gambling, which is illegal for under 18s, has been made possible by the creation of virtual items in games called “skins”, usually modified weapons or costumes that players can win or buy.
Now Parent Zone, an advice service for parents and schools, is calling for urgent action to close the loophole that allows skins to serve as a digital currency that can be gambled and cashed out.
Giles Milton, of Parent Zone, said its investigation showed gaming firms were not doing enough to stop it: “It is gambling and children should not be gambling online.”
There are concerns the trade in skins – of which there are 6billion in circulation, worth an estimated £10billion – could itself be fuelling the rise in addictive gaming.
This month, the World Health Organisation classified gaming addiction as a medical disorder treatable on the NHS. The Daily Telegraph is campaigning for a statutory duty of care on gaming and social media firms, making them legally responsible for protecting children from harm.
The scale of skins betting is exposed by an Ipsos MORI poll for Parent Zone, which found 10 per cent of 13- to 18 year-olds admitted gambling on unregulated casino, e-sports or mystery box games, equivalent to almost 450,000 teenagers. Around 27 per cent had heard of skins gambling, and 29 per cent thought it was a “very or fairly big” problem for under 18s. Despite age-verification procedures, the poll found 46 per cent said they were able to freely access 18-plus sites if they wanted to.
One teenager claimed to have amassed £2,000 worth of skins before blowing it all on a gambling site.
Another boy, 13, said: “I’ve got my own bank account so whatever money is in there [my parents] don’t really ask, I just spend it. I do £2/£3 micro-transactions all the time. They know that I’m spending it, just they don’t know what on.”
Skins, which modify the appearance of in-game objects, can be bought or earned on Steam, a widely used PC gaming platform that lets users trade them for a sterling value, which can be used to buy more skins or other games.
That balance cannot be withdrawn, but unaffiliated websites – some falsely branded with Steam’s logo – let users wager skins on casino games or professional e-sports matches and cash out the proceeds.
Mr Milton said: “Steam allows sites to connect code so that skins can be transferred. Steam says it’s the third party’s fault and has issued cease and desist orders but it is not doing enough.”
Lauren Foye, of Juniper market analysts, said new measures by Steam’s owner Valve, including a seven-day freeze on trading new items, had shrunk the value of skins gambled from £3.7billion in 2016 to £316million in 2017.
Most of the virtual items traded on Steam and other games come from “loot boxes”, digital reward packages bought for real money. They are banned in Belgium and regulated in China and Japan.
The Gambling Commission said loot boxes posed risks to young people, although most were not gambling as their prizes cannot be exchanged for money.
Valve said that it had no relationship with skin gambling sites and that it regularly shut them down, citing a recent cease and desist letter to Opskins, which responded by ending all Steamrelated trades.