Labubus are basically gambling for kids. I'm not sure they're sending the message they want to be, here.
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
67 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
42497 readers
58 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
I don't think they care if it's gambling or not.
They are trying to make the point that they shouldn't be targetted if other obvious known sources of illegal gambling are being actively ignored.
Either they need to go after everyone or no one. Since going after everyone is probably unlikely, targeting Valve for it would be unfair and may be dismissed.
WRT the US, the entire reason Labubus are not legally considered gambling is because there is no wager on the outcome of them. You pay the same amount each time (not wagering based on desired outcomes), and you always get something back. The question of whether a certain level of outcome-value randomization should instead be used as the litmus test for gambling is not one that has been asked or answered legally.
The specific state-by-state definitions of gambling in the US vary, of course, but generally it consists of a wager on a specific outcome of a contest or chance event, under an agreement to receive some value in exchange based on the result.
Changing to a definition where any payment + any random chance of loot = gambling, would open up a lot of very interesting possibilities, like potentially applying to any randomized loot in a video game (unless you start making specific carve-outs). It's important to remember that gambling's definition doesn't only apply to legal gambling, but also illegal gambling, so grey-market resales of game accounts would have to be factored into the consideration of anything in-game's value (i.e. you can't avoid "random loot in a game" being gambling in that case by saying the game can't be legally traded for the item value, because regardless, game accounts can be traded).
In more concrete terms, if I can buy Diablo 2 (pay fixed cost), get a really good item drop (random chance value outcome), and sell my Steam account to someone who wants that item (money in, money out), why would that be different than that same flow with a loot box?
You seem to be trying to define sports wagering as the only thing that qualifies as 'gambling'. Casinos would like a word (or actually, they probably wouldn't, they'd love this world of yours where casino games are apparently not gambling.)
(And trust me, if all that was required for a slot machine to avoid gambling regulations was "you always get something back", they'd all be paying 1c or giving you a discount voucher for your next Happy Meal on every losing spin tomorrow.)
Except slot machines do allow different wagers to get different monetary returns. Also, casinos are not just slot machines, but lots of other gambling games as well.
Some slot machines do. Some slot machines have a fixed wager. Does that make them not gambling?
And I'm not sure what the relevance of casinos having more than one type of gambling is. I've worked in the industry more than 30 years, and not once do I remember a regulator saying "it's OK, as long as you only do one of these things, you don't need a license."
I don't know where you got the idea that sports betting is the only betting with a wagered outcome, that's basically all card or table games at a casino.
My point of mentioning casinos having more than just slot machines is to say that they are first and foremost gambling establishments. Not every game in a casino actually is gambling, either; a lot of them have regular arcade games too.
The question of whether trading cards and loot boxes are gambling from a legal perspective is down to how the laws are written, and the laws in the US currently haven't defined them as such so far, because there is no wager on a specific outcome.
If loot boxes allowed you to pay more in order to get more good items on a 'win', my guess is they'd be smacked with a gambling designation instantly.
Or if trading cards allowed you to wager on the presence of specific cards in the pack, and win additional booster packs if correct, for instance.
If casinos want to say some of their games have been improperly classified as gambling because those games don't have those characteristics, they certainly can go to the gaming commission or take them to court and argue that (and depending on the game they may even be correct), but since they have to have a license anyways for all their other games that definitely are gambling, they probably won't care to.
And there are in fact slot machine games that aren't gambling (e.g. CloverPit), that just simulate playing a slot machine without actually having any real monetary mechanic (apart from paying for the game), so just being a slot machine doesn't inherently make it a gambling game.
Not to go too philosophical, but every physical item you buy is physically unique from each other one. Even with processes like Six Sigma to minimize variations, each car, table, chair etc is physically unique, and each in ways that affect its performance. You could buy 100,000 chairs of the same kind, and figure out which one is 'best' based on some characteristic (e.g. max weight), but that doesn't make "buying a chair" gambling, just because you ~~may~~ will get a worse or better chair each time.
In more concrete terms, if I can buy Diablo 2 (pay fixed cost), get a really good item drop (random chance value outcome), and sell my Steam account to someone who wants that item (money in, money out), why would that be different than that same flow with a loot box?
One potential difference is that you can play Diablo 2 as many times as you want.
So, its a lot less like inserting a coin to buy a chance at a capsule machine and a lot more like buying the whole machine. With every copy of the machine having the same capsules inside it. In your analogy you can say the previous owner already got a few capsules out, but you can also open the machine if you want and put them back inside, or change the machine's contents.
I've of course heard of Labubus, but do you not pick one to purchase? Like, are people literally paying without knowing what they'll get?
I can't imagine going to HEB and buying a random box that contains "some kind of food."
Yes, they're exactly that; plush doll random chance boxes. It's funny because gachapons have actually been in the US and Europe for 50+ years, but no one ever really thought of them like this because the toys inside never had real value.
Remember these outside of supermarkets?
Claw machines are gambling. Those coin machines that you get a sticker or a plastic spider out of is gambling. Kids having been gambling for decades. Hell even coin pushers is gambling.
I feel like we need to fully define gambling before any of this is settled. I believe anything where you give money for some kind of return but have a chance of recieving nothing back, then that is gambling. If you are guaranteed to get something for your money then thats not gambling. Thats just a purchase.
Any useful discussion of gambling needs to take into account its potential and actual scale of addiction, along with degree of harm. Not everything that falls under the "technically it's gambling" definition is created equal.
So yes, claw machines are gambling -- but I don't think very many people are wasting hundreds or thousands of dollars on them every month. They're a little harder to constantly have in your pocket as well.
If you are guaranteed to get something for your money then thats not gambling. Thats just a purchase.
I cannot agree with this at all. If you're guaranteed a piece of candy, but on top of that you have a 0.0001% chance of getting a million dollars, then buying that candy for $100 is absolutely gambling and not a purchase.
There has been a lot of posts about how people order a single SSD from amazon and end up with a whole box of SSDs. And if i go to amazon and order just a single SSD in hopes amazon screws up and sends me a full box instead, then i just gambled.
Should we go after amazon for encouraging gambling?
Should we go after amazon for encouraging gambling?
Amazon should be giving a full box of SSDs to every customer buying a dingle SSD, with 100% probability.
And complementary RAM
Yep. There are too many people who don't understand addiction, and think that gambling is the root cause problem, rather than one of many systems that preys on addiction disorders.
The reality of addiction is that it will always find something to fulfill it without treatment, and banning or regulating every trend of collectibles that pops up is not an actual solution. Banning or regulating specific structures that intentionally prey on addiction is important.
Too many people mistake their feeling-based objection to gambling that was inherited from the protestant moral objections, with actually being about solving predation on addiction.
I honestly am not sure this is only about addiction. Instead i think this is mostly about parents who dont monitor their childs activites and want aomeone to blame for their child spending thousands of dollars on a video game.
I mean gambling in general, not just loot boxes or TCGs. Gambling is not a bad thing. Gambling addiction is, but it's bad because it's addiction.
gambling is still fundamentally bad because the very concept is predatory and harmful
I disagree. I'm not much of a gambler ... never done anything but nickel slots. I put in $5 and generally get about a half-hour of entertainment. If I get above break-even, I cash out and am done. I got a free lunch out of it at a Montana gas station in college.
It's generally more like $5.15 than $10, but on a road trip, who doesn't like free food?
I've been to Vegas once. Same deal. Put $5 in a nickel slot. This time, I got free booze, so even though I lost all of my $5, I still came out ahead.
I am very much an addictive personality, but for some reason, I never caught the gambling bug. So I'm throwing stones at a glass house while residing in one ... in my case, I'm envious of anyone who can have just one or two beers.
If you're gambling to try to fix your economic situation or recoup prior losses, you're no longer seeking entertainment. But if you know your limits and stick with them (something I absolutely cannot do with alcohol), I don't see how spending $30 gambling for a few hours is materially different than going to a movie and buying popcorn. You can't get a soda included in that $30 these days.
My college roommate is a bit more adventurous. Both of us were there with our fiancees to see Penn & Teller, and he was more of a $25 buy-in blackjack player. He won enough to pay for their entire trip on his last hand before the airport shuttle. And then didn't do any gambling at the airport.
To say that gambling as a concept is inherently predatory doesn't square with my experience. But instilling it in kids via video games definitely is.
How so?
Claw machines are gambling
This is a bit more complicated, imo. In the US, I would agree they are gambling. They are literally programmed to only close the claw strongly enough to grab shit after X amount of money has been put into the machine.
However, in Japan this is against the law. They are games of skill without the bullshit. You can even ask the clerks operating the establishment to reset the prizes to make it easier to get something if it falls over or is pushed too close to the glass. IIRC, you can also just ask to buy a prize outright without even playing the game.
Sure Japan has a way to protect people in regards to the claw machine. But gacha games and gachapon are huge in japan. And those are more predatory than loot boxes. So we still need to draw the line and sort out what actually is and isnt gambling.
Look at carnaval games, a mobile gambling group that targwts children? If we have loot boxes be labeled as gambling who is to say that we wont label everything else as gambling.
Where is the line?
Where's the line
Games of Chance vs games of skill.
"But poker is a game of skill!"
No it fucking isn't. You can mitigate your losses by folding early or bluffing, but you can not guarantee a win by being "better" when the luck of the draw is still against you, unless you're counting cards.
I still believe that is too broad of a definition. I go back to carnaval games. Those are games of skill but they are made in away to reduce your chance of winning, so luck is still a major factor.
Meanwhile loot boxes are neother a game of chance or a game of skill. They are a purchase and you get what you get. What are those mystery box toys called that everyone was going crazy for last year? LuLu dolls or whatever. Those are loot boxes. Should we regulate them like we are trying with video game loot boxes?
I would narrow this down to including monetary cost and reward.
A game of primarily chance, such as slots, roulette, poker, blackjack, or even MTG's Ante variation where something of value is offered (money, chips, resellable cards) and something of value is rewarded would be gambling. Note that chance would be a primary mechanic of the game, but skill may still be involved.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is involved in this? I mean, voters did gamble on her.
I hate her. She has the worst initials.
Also, she's generally a bad person, but that's irrelevant.
I never got into trading cards or tabletop gaming. My college roommate, on the other hand, when running out of disposable cash, would traipse down to the WotC on The Ave with his Warhammer figurines and enter competitions. He was no longer short on money afterward.
(apologies to the rest of Beehaw for going Seattle-specific)
That's not really true, in Japan claw machines use the same variable strength bullshit that happens in the US. They are explicitly classified as gambling under Japanese law.
Booster packs in card games like Pokemon and MTG are gambling. They contain random cards with published, known odds. The cards are worth monetary value. The consensus across the board for these games in their communities is that the packs are gambling, and it is pretty much always better to buy single cards from a third party if you need specific cards.
So are they arguing it should be "legal gambling" here? Because I'd argue the opposite - booster packs are also illegal gambling.
One argument is that gambling requires the chance of a loss - you go to a casino, make a wager, buy a lottery ticket, bet on a horse race, you can lose your money and end up with nothing.
But buy a Labubu, a Lego minifigure blind bag, MtG booster, or a video game lootbox, and while you don't know exactly what, you will always get something in return for your money.
Then again, "taking a gamble" is a term used for many things, like when you buy a used car without extensively checking the condition first, because you don't know what exactly you are getting...
Mashallah valve will pay for bringing maplestory to the west