A UK-based gambling watchdog has found that loot boxes in FIFA and other video games do not constitute gambling, at least under current laws. Loot boxes in games have come under international scrutiny in the past few years due to concerns from both players and governments over whether they should be classified as gambling.
of Parliament in the UK have recently been leading an inquiry into "addictive technologies," especially video games and the way their publishers implement loot boxes. Many people inside and outside the video game industry believe that ban loot boxes after determining that loot boxes qualify as gambling, and are therefore illegal in their territories.
The UK, on the other hand, is having more trouble deciding what to do about loot boxes and other similar practices. According to the Overwatch, and plenty of other games with some sort of paid chance-based mechanic used to acquire unknown rewards.
However, while loot box contents may have no official value, there have been (and still are) plenty of third-party websites which enable players to literally gamble the content they acquire from loot boxes in virtual casino games, offering them the chance to generate real money. This is called "skin betting," and is prohibited by most game publishers in their of service. Yet it continues to be a problem, and the Gambling Commission has said that it isn't enough for publishers to simply say that they "don't want this happening."
All of this points to the inherent conflict between publisher culture surrounding loot boxes and consumers. Major game publishers like EA - who are most likely to implement loot boxes into their games - have refused to view them as a problem, instead trying to label them as "address loot boxes and their effects, which may be the consumer's only hope for better business at this point.
Source: BBC