UK report urges urgent global regulation of skins gambling
The report finds that the most popular skins websites generated more monthly global traffic than major traditional online betting platforms.
UK.- A report commissioned by the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has called for urgent collective regulation of skins gambling across jurisdictions. The study claims that some skin gambling sites are more popular than traditional online gambling and represent a risk for young players.
The report calls for enforcing stronger age verification processes and measures to address the cross-border operation of platforms through international standards for monitoring and controlling skins gambling. The aim should be to close regulatory loopholes, protect vulnerable individuals, and ensure that skins gambling is subject to appropriate oversight, it says.
Skins gambling involves betting on virtual items obtained in online video games. It’s associated with loot boxes, which have raised concerns due to their popularity among young players. Critics argue that loot boxes, which award random items, introduce young people to gambling at an age when they are more susceptible to gambling-related harm and could serve as a gateway to traditional forms of gambling.
“Policy implications include the urgent need for collective regulation across jurisdictions that explicitly classifies skins gambling as a form of gambling and holds operators to the same standards as traditional gambling platforms,” the report states. “This should include mandatory age verification, transparency, fairness, and responsible gambling protocols.
“Furthermore, game developers must be held accountable for the gambling-like mechanics within their games, ensuring that safeguards are built in to protect younger individuals. Closing the gaps in protections for vulnerable populations requires stricter enforcement of age restrictions and the implementation of age-based safeguards in gaming environments.”
The study looked into how skins gambling compares to traditional forms of gambling in terms of game design, participation, demographics, and impact on gambling-related harm, the risks of participating in skins gambling for vulnerable groups, and how accessible skins gambling is compared to regulated gambling.
The report states that the anonymity afforded by platforms offering skins gambling, the absence of age verification at the point of use, and the fact the activity is largely unregulated makes them easily accessible to children and young people, regardless of laws and regulations in specific jurisdictions.
Although the Gambling Commission works to remove and block sites in Britain, the report finds that a “lack of regulation, the absence of acceptable responsible gambling standards on the platforms, and the potential for increased exposure, could lead to gambling-related harm that includes the development of unhealthy gambling behaviours at a young age”.
More traffic than traditional gambling?
Over 50 skins gambling websites were identified as accessible from the UK. Across 45 sites where information was available regarding website traffic, 6.9 million unique visits were recorded globally in February 2025. The UK made up 3.93 per cent of global skins gambling traffic. The top nine websites (by web traffic) each generated over one million total visits in February 2025.
The most popular skins websites generated more monthly global traffic than well-established traditional online betting platforms, such as Betfred.com, Betvictor.com, Betway.com, 32red.com, and Ballycasino.co.uk, the report states. Website cross-visitation data suggested that skins gamblers tend to visit multiple skins gambling websites, and showed that use of Steam and popular video game streaming platforms were highly correlated with skins gambling website use.
There was a convergence of findings from both the website analytics data and academic literature, which showed that skins gambling is disproportionately common among younger males, particularly adolescents. Research has found that those aged 11–14 years were more than twice as likely to engage in skins gambling as those aged 22–24 years. Such findings suggest that skin gambling may be introducing gambling behaviours to children at an earlier age than previously thought, the report argues.
“Many skins gambling games highly resemble those found on contemporary gambling platforms such as Stake.com,” the report states. “The games offered by skins gambling websites represent a mix of traditional gambling features as well as a new era of gambling with non-traditional games of chance, such as loot box (case) openings, electronic dice, mines, crash, drop, and double.
“The mechanics of some games highly resemble traditional gambling games. Some loot boxes for example, highly resemble slot machine features, such as near misses and variable reinforcement schedules. Double games mimic a roulette wheel, but substitute traditional numbers with video game symbols.”
Several known harmful gaming features were identified, including near miss mechanics, losses disguised as wins, and high event frequency (rapid speed of play). Many of the contemporary skins gambling games were found to have design features that promote the illusion of control, such as allowing players to set the risk-profile of games and to make in-game decisions despite the pre-determined outcome. Some games also offer ‘player versus player’ modes, which induces competition and may exacerbate risk-taking behaviours.
While skins gambling meets the legal definition of gambling in Britain and is therefore subject to gambling regulation, many platforms operate without licences, often outside the jurisdictional reach of national regulators, and are therefore functioning illegally. This creates significant challenges for consumer protection, particularly for children and young people who may access these services, the report states.
The study also called for more research to understand the long-term psychological and behavioural impacts of skins gambling, particularly among children and adolescents, and how exposure to such practices influences the development of gambling behaviours.
“Research into effective harm-reduction strategies and interventions within gaming environments will be crucial. Additionally, exploring the challenges and opportunities for cross-border regulation of skins gambling platforms will be necessary to address the global nature of the issue,” it states.
In 2022, the DCMS, then led by Nadine Dorries, decided not to ban loot boxes. Instead, the government created a technical working group that included video game companies and social media platforms. That resulted in the publication of a code for self-regulation in August 2023, which includes a requirement that ads make it clear when a game contains paid-for loot boxes.
https://focusgn.com/uk-report-urges-urgent-global-regulation-of-skins-gambling