ArticleAddiction (Abingdon, England)2022
Loot box engagement: relationships with educational attainment, employment status and earnings in a cohort of 16 000 United Kingdom gamers.
Article in Addiction (Abingdon, England), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Widespread Suspected Illegal Advertising of Paid Loot Boxes and Social Casino Games in Belgium: Empowered by the EU Digital Services Act to Assess Compliance Using Meta's Ad Repository.European addiction research · 2026Article
- You Pay, You Play? Understanding Loot Box Engagement, Demographic Profiles and Associations with Gambling and Gaming Disorder in Three Polish Studies.Journal of gambling studies · 2026Article
- Sex differences, perceived stress, gaming motives, and gambling-like attitudes toward loot-boxes predict risky loot box use among Polish gamers.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- A longitudinal replication study testing migration from video game loot boxes to gambling in British Columbia, Canada.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Scrutinizing the Gateway Relationship Between Gaming and Gambling Disorder: Scoping Review With a Focus on the Southeast Asian Region.JMIR serious games · 2025Review
- Article
- Watch and yearn? Effects of watching gambling livestreams on cravings.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2024Article
- Internet, App-Based, and Casino Gambling: Associations Between Modality, Problem Gambling, and Substance Use.Journal of gambling studies · 2024Article
- Exploring the relationships between psychological variables and loot box engagement, part 2: exploratory analyses of complex relationships.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Exploring the relationships between psychological variables and loot box engagement, part 1: pre-registered hypotheses.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- A scoping review of the association between loot boxes, esports, skin betting, and token wagering with gambling and video gaming behaviors.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2023Article
- Loot box engagement: relationships with educational attainment, employment status and earnings in a cohort of 16 000 United Kingdom gamers.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2022Article
- Loot boxes use, video gaming, and gambling in adolescents: Results from a path analysis before and during COVID-19-pandemic-related lockdown in Italy.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Review
- Development and Validation of the RAFFLE: A Measure of Reasons and Facilitators for Loot Box Engagement.Journal of clinical medicine · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsLoot boxes are purchasable randomised rewards in video games that share structural and psychological similarities with gambling. Systematic review evidence has established reproducible associations between loot box purchasing and both problem gambling and problem video gaming. We aimed to measure the association between loot box engagement and socioeconomic correlates.
designThe study was a cross-sectional online survey using the recruitment platform, Prolific.
settingUnited Kingdom (UK).
participantsA cohort of 16 196 UK adults (18 + years) self-reporting as video gamers. MEASUREMENTS: Respondents were asked about their game-related purchasing behaviour (including loot boxes), recent monthly spend on loot boxes and gambling engagement (gambling in any form; gambling online; playing 'social casino' games). A range of demographic variables were simultaneously captured, including age, sex, ethnicity, earnings, employment and educational attainment.
findingsOverall, 17.16% of gamers in our cohort purchased loot boxes, with a mean self-reported monthly spend of £29.12. These loot box purchasers are more likely to gamble (45.97% gamble) than people who make other types of game-related purchases (on aggregate, 28.13% of non-loot box purchasers gamble), and even greater still than those who do not make any game related purchases (24.38% gamble P < 0.001). Loot box engagement (as binary yes/no or as monthly spend normalised to earnings) was significantly associated with younger age (P < 0.001 and P < 0.001; respectively, for binary yes/no and monthly spend, adjusted for false discovery rate correction), male sex (P < 0.001 and P = 0.025), non-university educational attainment (P < 0.001 and P < 0.001) and unemployment (P = 0.003 and P = < 0.001). Lower earners spent a higher proportion of monthly earnings on loot boxes (P < 0.001).
conclusionsThe demographic associations of video game loot box engagement (younger age, male sex, non-university educational attainment and unemployment) mirror those of other addictive and problematic behaviours, including disordered gambling, drug and alcohol misuse.
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