‘Video games snare children in betting’
HEALTH: Gaming companies risk “setting kids up for harmful addiction” by including gambling tasks in their video games, the director of mental health for the NHS said.
The firms should either ban virtual “loot boxes” from their products or put a stop to selling them to children, Claire Murdoch said.
GAMING COMPANIES risk “setting kids up for addiction” by including gambling tasks in their video games, the director of mental health for the NHS said.
The firms should either ban virtual “loot boxes” from their products or stop selling them to children, Claire Murdoch said.
In order to progress in games, children can spend money on extra items and in-game content through what has become known as loot boxes, but they don’t always know what items they will be given until they part with their money, meaning users are encouraged to keep spending and playing.
There have been numerous cases of children spending money without parents knowing. One teenager spent £2,000 on a basketball game, while a 15-year-old lost £1,000 in a shooting game.
Gaming companies should introduce “fair and realistic” spending limits and make it clear to users what chance they have of obtaining the items they want, Ms Murdoch said.
The NHS is also calling for a regulator to oversee the gaming industry.
Ms Murdoch said: “Frankly, no company should be setting kids up for addiction by teaching them to gamble on the content of these loot boxes. No firm should sell to children loot box games with this element of chance, so yes, those sales should end.
“Young people’s health is at stake, and although the NHS is stepping up with these new, innovative services available to families through our long-term plan, we cannot do this alone, so other parts of society must do what they can to limit risks and safeguard children’s wellbeing.”
According to the Gambling Commission, 55,000 children have a gambling problem, while the NHS estimates 400,000 people have a serious gambling problem in England.
More than half of young people believe playing video games could lead to gambling, according to a report by the Royal Society for Public Health in December.
A recent parliamentary report called for loot boxes to be regulated under gambling laws, a ban on loot boxes being sold to children, and an industry levy to fund independent research on the longterm effects of gaming.
These come after The Yorkshire
Children are being led down a path towards online gambling.
Barnardo’s chief executive Javed Khan, who called for child safety features.
Post reported in August that children as young as 11 were involved in online gambling and research by the Safer Online Gambling Group estimated families could be losing more than £270m each year through loot boxes alone, with the average spend on ingame content per person estimated at £500-600 per year.
Last summer, the campaign’s director Adam Bradford travelled from Sheffield to 10 Downing Street to hand in a petition calling for more controls on online games and aiming to raise awareness among parents of the risks of online games.
Barnardo’s chief executive Javed Khan said: “It’s deeply concerning that children are being led down a path towards online gambling.
“The industry must do much more to incorporate child safety features into their products so children are protected from the dangers of online gaming. The Government must commit to an online industry regulator to hold the industry to account.”
A gambling addiction treatment centre in Sunderland opened last week, making it the third operating across England.
The Government hopes to have 15 by 2024 to help with problems including persistent gambling, compulsive behaviour, development disorders and difficulties earlier in childhood that underlie addiction.