Gacha regulation by country

No two jurisdictions regulate gacha the same way. Some treat paid random draws as a gambling question, some as a consumer-protection question, and several rely on industry self-regulation. This page summarizes the state of play as of July 2026, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, with primary sources. It is a reference, not legal advice.

Japan

Japan never legislated against gacha as gambling. Instead, the Consumer Affairs Agency ruled on May 18, 2012 that kompu gacha, the set-completion variant, was a prohibited "card matching" premium scheme under the 1962 Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations, effective July 1, 2012. [1] Ordinary gacha remained legal, governed since by industry self-regulation: JOGA's 2012 guidelines (rate display, and spending-estimate caps of 100 draws or 50,000 yen for any rare item) and CESA's 2016 disclosure guidelines adopted after the Granblue Fantasy incident. [2]

China

China was the first country to mandate odds disclosure by law: the Ministry of Culture's December 2016 Notice, effective May 1, 2017, requires publishing item contents and draw probabilities and keeping draw records for at least 90 days. [3] Regulator reorganization in 2019 moved games oversight to the NPPA, which layered on the world's strictest minors regime: spending caps by age bracket (2019) and the September 2021 rule limiting minors to three hours of online gaming per week. [4] A December 2023 draft rule that would have added spending limits and banned offering random draws to minors was pulled in January 2024 after erasing tens of billions of dollars in publisher market value, and has not been reissued. [4]

South Korea

Amendments to the Game Industry Promotion Act made loot box probability disclosure mandatory from March 22, 2024, in-game, on websites, and in advertising, backed by corrective orders and criminal penalties; the regulator found 266 non-compliant games within months. [5] In January 2024 the Korea Fair Trade Commission fined Nexon 11.6 billion won over concealed probability changes in MapleStory, and a further amendment passed in 2025 added treble punitive damages with a reversed burden of proof. [5]

Belgium

The Belgian Gaming Commission concluded in April 2018 that paid loot boxes are games of chance under the Gaming and Betting Act, examining Overwatch, FIFA 18, and CS:GO. [6] Publishers responded by removing paid random content for Belgian players, and Nintendo withdrew its two gacha mobile games from Belgium entirely in August 2019 rather than comply. [13] Belgium remains the strictest major market, enforced in practice through publisher self-exclusion.

Netherlands

The Dutch gambling authority took the same position as Belgium in 2018 and imposed penalty orders on Electronic Arts over FIFA Ultimate Team packs in 2019. The Council of State reversed course on March 9, 2022, ruling that FIFA packs are an element of chance within a game of skill rather than a standalone game of chance, and annulled the penalties. [7] The reversal is the leading counter-example to gambling-law approaches in Europe.

United States

There is no federal loot box statute. The active instrument is FTC consumer-protection enforcement: on January 17, 2025 the agency settled with Cognosphere, publisher of Genshin Impact, for US$20 million, banning loot box sales to children under 16 without parental consent and requiring odds disclosure, direct real-currency purchase options, and clearer virtual-currency pricing. [8] The settlement's terms function as de facto compliance guidance for gacha publishers operating in the US.

United Kingdom

After a two-year call for evidence, the government announced in July 2022 that it would not legislate or amend the Gambling Act, opting for industry-led protections: parental consent for child purchases and spending transparency, formalized in Ukie's eleven loot box principles of July 2023. [9]

Australia

From September 22, 2024, new games containing paid loot boxes receive a mandatory minimum M classification, and games with simulated gambling receive a mandatory R18+, applied prospectively. [10]

European Union

EU-level action has so far come through consumer-protection coordination rather than gambling law. In March 2025 the Commission and national authorities published Key Principles on in-game virtual currencies (real-money price transparency, no cost obscuring, no pressure tactics toward children) alongside enforcement against a first target. [11] In November 2025 the European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution urging a prohibition on loot boxes in games likely to be accessed by minors. [12] The Commission's Digital Fairness Act, expected as a proposal in late 2026, is the vehicle to watch; as of July 2026 no EU-wide loot box law is in force.

Platform rules

Independent of governments, Apple's App Store has required published odds for paid random items since 2017, and Google Play has an equivalent policy. These rules are why base-rate disclosure is effectively universal in mobile gacha worldwide, even where no law requires it; see rate disclosure.