ArticleBMC psychology2025
A longitudinal replication study testing migration from video game loot boxes to gambling in British Columbia, Canada.
Article in BMC psychology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Problematic Online Gaming and Gambling Among First-Year University Students: Identification of Profiles and Psychological Vulnerabilities.Journal of gambling studies · 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
- When Gaming Becomes Like Gambling: The Role of Flow, Immersion, Craving, and Self-control in Risky Loot Box use among Polish gamers.Journal of gambling studies · 2026Article
- Gambling and screening for gambling problems in high school students before and after legal gambling age: associations with gender and gambling-related attitudes.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Heavy spenders in digital games: expenditure disparities and associations between microtransactions, gaming disorder and gambling disorder among adolescents.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Better than industry self-regulation: Compliance of mobile games with newly adopted and actively enforced loot box probability disclosure law in South Korea.Acta psychologica · 2025Article
- The impact of prior online gaming experience on the migration of offline gamblers to online gambling platforms.PloS one · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLoot boxes are randomized reward mechanics in modern video games that share features with conventional gambling products. Research studies have begun to test longitudinal patterns ("migration") from engagement with loot boxes to gambling behavior. This study investigated such effects at a 6-month follow-up in an online sample of young adults that play video games (aged 19-25) from British Columbia, Canada.
methodsParticipants were stratified into two subgroups at their baseline assessment: 83 reported they did not currently gamble and 43 reported they currently gamble, after cleaning. At baseline, participants provided responses to the Risky Loot Box Index (RLI) and estimates of their past year spending on both randomized (i.e., loot boxes) and non-randomized ("direct purchase") microtransactions. Microtransaction spending and RLI scores at baseline were tested as predictors of self-identified gambling initiation and spend at follow-up. We tested a set of frequentist regressions and a corresponding set of Bayesian regressions.
resultsAt baseline, participants who reported gambling showed higher levels of engagement with both randomized and non-randomized microtransactions. Among non-gambling participants at baseline, loot box spending and RLI predicted gambling initiation at the follow-up, in a Bayesian logistic regression with informed priors. Loot box spending and RLI at baseline predicted gambling expenditure at follow-up, in both the frequentist and Bayesian linear regressions. Spending on direct purchase microtransactions did not predict gambling initiation in either set of models when controlling for loot box spending, underscoring the role of randomized rewards.
conclusionsThese data provide further prospective evidence for gambling 'migration' in a sample recruited in Western Canada, indicating that young adults who spend money on loot boxes are at elevated risk for real-money gambling.
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