The UK Gambling Commission is powerless to regulate in-game microtransactions unless the government classes them gambling. In an interview with Eurogamer, the Gambling Commission’s chief executive, Tim Miller, says that while precedent is important, the actions of other countries, including Belgium and the United States, have minimal impact on British legislation.

Games rating boards like PEGI and the ESRB can't comment on lootboxes until the law does.

Miller says “the key in all of this is to recognise it’s parliament rather than [the Gambling Commission] that sets the legal definition of what is or is not gambling.” But with current legal definitions of gambling within the UK, lootboxes don’t count; Miller says that “the lootboxes we’ve seen, none of them contain a facility to cash-out within the game itself, and that’s really the key thing which is preventing