I'm all for seeing items with random distribution inside as gambling too. I recall the monetary value of some pokemon cards caused my school to ban them. This didn't really have any effect other than to allow the school to say, "well, they are banned," if there was any fights or thefts relating to them. I think they probably had a net social negative amongst my friends at the time. In fact the only social positive I saw from them was in getting people, who wouldn't otherwise interact, interacting -- which wasn't always a good thing.

But I do see a few tiny differences in general between loot boxes and physical items like trading cards:

1. the packet does contain physical items which cost money to produce, whereas a duplication of a virtual item is effectively the distribution cost.

2. Retailers made a profit on physical items too. With virtual items sold by developer-publishers like EA and Valve, it's really just one party.

3. There is typically no limit on the number of loot boxes you can purchase. With physical items there is the stock of the shop.

4. Loot boxes can in some cases be purchased with other people's (usually parents) cards by default and without their immediate knowledge.

5. It isn't routine for somebody to give you a pack of physical tradable items for free to go and feel what they are like. If you go and buy them, there is a small amount of honesty in terms of what you are getting. With loot boxes, you are presented with them through in game events and then provided with the opportunity to buy more.

6. With physical items, you don't know how things are distributed but you can be reasonably certain that they can't be targeted at you. If you're looking for card X, the shopkeeper usually has no way of knowing what pack contains that and withholding that pack from you to maximise profit. You have no idea how the loot boxes are distributed. It is entirely possible for developers to detect when somebody is "hooked", work out what they are after, and attempt to maximise profit by withholding the desired item.

The only thing that could prevent such abuses is to regulate loot boxes as gambling as several countries have now done and respond with immense penalties where regulations are violated (a multiple of what would be made * estimated chance of being caught or a fraction of published turnover).

>If you're looking for card X, the shopkeeper usually has no way of knowing what pack contains that and withholding that pack from you to maximise profit.

Although I believe they do weigh Pokemon booster packs to find the ones with more valuable shiny cards.

I actually have a coworker that's very active in the Pokémon community, and there are now countermeasures to make this ineffective. IIRC, there are now variances in the weight of a "code card" inside the pack.

Most physical things also has some amount of virtual value if you compare the production cost. Especially Pokemon cards et.al cost almost nothing to produce and has a high virtual value. Or some expensive brands.

> There are you tube videos my kids liked to watch of people just literally opening pokemon packs. I'd actually be OK with making this illegal.

You want to make something illegal because you don't like it, because you can't be bothered to parent your children.

And most adults have no idea how to work out what the expected spend is to complete a set.

For a set of 16 Lego figures (ignoring attempts to squidge the packet before buying, but also ignoring swaps) you'd expect to buy over 50 packs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupon_collector's_problem

It can cost hundreds of dollars to complete a panini book, and that's with vigorous swapping.

I agree with you about Pokémon cards and Lego minifig packs. They should be regulated.

With the Lego minifigs, collectors often try to get their hands on an unopened box of 60 packs, since each box has the same mix of figures. Open packs and then sell on unwanted ones.

I think candy should be outlawed too. I'd actually be OK with make this illegal. Kids are obviously just addicted to the stuff, it is clearly no good for them, and there is a massive industry both virtual (candy crush) and non (physical candy) that preys, sorry, PREYS on humans sweet tooth instinct. Nestle makes a lot of money in convenience stores via this.

Lego packs? Don't all boxes of a lego set include the same pieces?

There are Lego 'blind bags' for mini figurines, which do not let you see the content of the bag before opening it. The bag contains one mini figure from a predefined set, and some characters in the set are more rare than others.

All blind bags cost the same amount, but the rarity aspect could encourage kids to buy more bags in an effort get lucky and find the rare figure. This could be construed as gambling.

Wow, way to destroy your credibility there Lego.

I thought they were above shithead tactics like this.

The people that are buying the Lego collectible minifigure packs are not typically children. It's clearly targeted at the AFOL audience.

A Disney themed minifig blind bag clearly marked as being for ages 5+ is something young kids want, regardless of any attempted AFOL targeting.