This episode is also available as a blog post: http://sportslawandpolicyreviewreporter.com/2023/01/22/loot-boxes-gambling-or-gaming/

Loot Boxes purchasable with in-game or real currency deliver randomized in-game item(s) which could be cosmetic, performance based or even a combination of the two. An estimated revenue of $48 Billion was generated from the sales of loot boxes alone in 2018.  The contents of the loot boxes remain unknown to the player until the purchase is actualized. While there exists a chance that the loot box may contain an extremely rare and invaluable item, there also exists a significantly greater chance that it contains a basic item of much lesser value. This sends the purchaser down a classic spiral where the purchaser believes the subsequent expenditure to deliver enough value to cover the losses already incurred. As a part of monetization strategies, the chances of a player receiving a high value item from a loot box is deliberately kept low by developers since such impulsive behavior of users induces repeat purchases. Either way, it is the game developer that ultimately wins.

In this blog post, the author discusses the loot box mechanisms of games and whether they possess the characteristics of conventional gambling systems.