Region & Target Population
- Region: Great Britain
- Target population: Young people aged 16–24, including a large 18–24 emerging-adult group
Study Design
- Cross-sectional online survey
- Uses Wave 1 of the Emerging Adults Gambling Survey
Sample Characteristics (with data-collection years)
- Sample size: N = 3,549 (weighted to national population benchmarks)
- Past-year gambling: 42.5%
- Problem gambling: 3.7% met PGSI criteria
- Loot-box purchasing: 12.1%
- Data collection: June–August 2019
Measures Used
- PGSI
- Participation in 17 gambling activities
- Loot-box purchasing in the past year
- Impulsivity and sociodemographic controls
Research Questions
Are young people who purchase loot boxes more likely to gamble and to experience problem gambling, independent of impulsivity and overall gambling involvement?
Key Findings
- Loot-box purchasers were disproportionately male, younger, more impulsive, and engaged in a broader range of gambling activities.
- Unadjusted models showed approximately 11-fold higher odds of problem gambling among loot-box purchasers.
- After adjusting for demographics, impulsivity, and gambling breadth, the association remained strong
- Loot boxes were more commonly purchased than nearly all traditional gambling activities except lotteries and scratchcards.
Study Conclusion
The authors conclude that loot boxes represent a high-risk, gambling-adjacent digital product. Purchasing loot boxes marks a subgroup of emerging adults with substantially elevated gambling risk, supporting calls to treat loot boxes as part of the gambling harm landscape and to subject them to appropriate regulatory oversight.
