Mentioned in this article Games: FIFA 18, Overwatch

Belgium has ruled against ‘at least’ three video games for violating gambling laws.

Minister of Justice Koen Geens is looking to get game developers on board with adding player protections into their games.

Penalties for violations include a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of up to €800K.

Belgium has officially ruled that “at least three video games” are violating gambling legislation with their use of loot boxes, according to the country’s Minister of Justice, Koen Geens. This follows an announcement last November that the Belgium’s Gaming Commission had investigated loot box usage and found that in certain cases it constituted gambling. Now, the Commission has looked closely at four games—Star Wars Battlefront II, Overwatch , FIFA 18 , and Counter Strike: Global Offensive — and found the majority in violation.

“Although loot box systems in [Overwatch, FIFA 18, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive] can be seen as games of chance, they lack protection for players. The fact that these players are often minors is worrying… If this is not properly addressed, games of chance in video games will cause great damage to people, family, and society. The games with paid loot boxes, as currently offered in our country, are therefore in violation of gaming legislation and can be dealt with under criminal law. Loot boxes must therefore be removed. If that does not happen, the operators risk a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of up to 800,000 euros. When minors are involved, those punishments can be doubled.”

To be clear, Minister Geens is not trying to eliminate loot boxes entirely. The release cites that the next step is for the Commission to engage with the respective game developers and help them put protections into place for players. Some protections, suggested by Eurogamer, could take the form of removing fancy visual effects to box openings, or an internal cooldown to prevent rapid-fire box openings.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Unregulated gambling is a serious problem within the sporting industry for multiple reasons.[/perfectpullquote]

Belgium is far from the first country to look into this issue, but is one of the first to outline actual penalties. Last week, the Netherlands gave a deadline of June 20 to unspecified violators to comply with gambling laws. Other states getting involved include Germany, the UK, Hawaii, and Washington state. Our poll on the matter found that a slight majority of our readers qualify loot boxes as a form of gambling.

Unregulated gambling is a serious problem within the sporting industry for multiple reasons. The first is what’s being addressed by legislators here—a lack of player protections can lead to addiction and real damage to players. Another big one is corruption issues, which esports has already seen in spades. Match-fixing, questionable business practices, and illegal endorsements have all happened in the unregulated world of esports gambling, which often utilizes loot boxes.