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Comment by pfisch | Hacker News Reader

What is that websters?

That is not the legal definition of gambling, and all court decisions on the subject clearly indicate that gambling requires real cash value to the prizes and not just entertainment that has no actual value.

Loot boxes do not have the 3rd element of gambling, which is the recognized legal definition in virtually every jurisdiction.

https://www.truthfinder.com/glossary/gambling-definition/

"In order for the activity to be considered gambling, it must contain three separate elements. These are consideration, chance, and a prize. If one or more of these elements is not present, then gambling is not taking place."

"The final element of gambling is the prize. If the player has the chance to win something of value, then gambling is taking place. Again, the amount or value of the prize is inconsequential. As long as it has some value, it is considered gambling."

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> Loot boxes do not have the 3rd element of gambling

Huh? I thought it was well established that there is value and that, in some cases, it could even be "legitimately" (even according to the rules of the game provider) traded for real-world money.

This may not apply to all constructs that could be considered "loot boxes", but I'm confident it's not the case that the vast majority lack the feature of of transferability of the "loot" that would give credence to the argument that any value is purely that of entermainment to the individual user.

> I thought it was well established that there is value and that, in some cases, it could even be "legitimately" (even according to the rules of the game provider) traded for real-world money.

I have never heard of any game provider doing that. I don't really believe you because they would have no legal protection if they did that.

All of their arguments are that the digital goods in the lootbox have no real cash value and are only meant for entertainment purposes.

Steam is the one who really rides the rails with these arguments when they let you turn digital goods into steam dollars. But you can't trade the steam dollars and you can't cash them out. They also actively pursue websites that do let you cash out the value of steam digital goods and try to shut them down and make it difficult for them to operate.

I can (and have) easily cashed out everything that is on the Steam marketplace for USD.

Ever heard of a third party? How about paypal? Is a gray market a concept foreign to you entirely?

I can exchange them to a bot, recieve Amazon gift card funds, and then turn that into USD.

I can trade them straight up for any cryptocurrency.

I can have a bank deposit made tomorrow.

I can exchange them for points on a website which get cashed out for USD/EUR/GBP.

The list goes on.

Just because you are ignorant and Steam isn't directly handing me a dollar for every Steam wallet dollar doesn't mean it is impossible.

Please educate yourself or stop feigning.

To be fair, it was a response to my accusation of legitimate exchange for real-world money, which, if any grey-market is involved, is technically not fully legitimate (according to, e.g. Steam).

There's also the argument that, because Steam makes an active effort to resist the grey-market exchnges, that gives them some kind of deniability or "legal protection". I believe that both you and I agree that it does not, at least not in any meanigful sense. I also doubt that was their motivation in the first place, rather than, for example, maximizing their own profit in selling the digital goods themselves.

> Steam isn't directly handing me a dollar for every Steam wallet dollar doesn't mean it is impossible.

I think this is actually the most important point. It's not that grey markets have to be involved to convert digital goods into real money. It's that Steam has legitimized everything but the very last step of converting their in-game currency into real currency (and take a cut along the way, from what I understand from other comments in the thread).

This is espeically true if they permit the exchange of real dollars into Steam dollars and merely prohibit the reverse exchange. There's no claiming "entertainment value only" and being taken seriously.

Mostly what mmt1 said, but also what you are describing is against the tos of steam.

They have done everything within their power to make this not legitimate.

If an operator buys a game that normally gives out tickets and uses it as an illegal gambling device is the game developer responsible for that, or is the operator?

Steam is not responsible for grey market transactions it is actively working to shut down. The grey market is the one operating the casino here.

> what you are describing is against the tos of steam. > They have done everything within their power to make this not legitimate.

There's no evidence they've done everything in their power to eliminate grey market transactions. It's in their power, for example, to remove transferability of items (or maybe just items from loot boxes, though I'm insufficiently familiar with them to know if that could be gamed).

However, it's almost entirely irrelevant, because that's only one piece of a much larger "puzzle".

> If an operator buys a game that normally gives out tickets and uses it as an illegal gambling device is the game developer responsible for that, or is the operator?

This questions seems immaterial, since Steam is both the game developer and the operator.

> The grey market is the one operating the casino here.

Steam is operating every single part of the casino, except the very last little bit of cashing out the chips. They even have a cashier from whom one can buy chips in the first place!

You actually have it backward. It's the grey market that is not responsible for Steam's operation of a casino. It would still exist if items were still transferable, still had real world value to someone, but were no longer available through a Steam-operated lottery system.

> There's no evidence they've done everything in their power to eliminate grey market transactions. It's in their power, for example, to remove transferability of items (or maybe just items from loot boxes, though I'm insufficiently familiar with them to know if that could be gamed).

Why do they have to remove legitimate features?

> his questions seems immaterial, since Steam is both the game developer and the operator.

Steam is not the operator of the sites converting steam items into money, so it is very relevant.

> Steam is operating every single part of the casino, except the very last little bit of cashing out the chips.

So if you can transfer items in a video game between users it is now a casino? That is ridiculous and covers every MMO and a lot of other online games.

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