Revision history: Loot box

Loot box is the umbrella term, used by regulators and researchers, for any purchasable in-game container or draw whose contents are randomized. The Belgian Gaming Commission's 2018 report, the study that shaped European policy, defined the category broadly enough to cover card packs, prize crates, and character banners alike. [1]

Gacha is a loot box mechanic under every regulatory framework that has examined it. The distinction players draw between the two is cultural and structural (gacha pools are character-driven, banner-scheduled, and central to progression, while Western loot boxes have more often been cosmetic add-ons), but no jurisdiction distinguishes them legally. When Belgium ruled paid loot boxes to be games of chance, gacha games withdrew from the country alongside FIFA packs; when the US FTC acted on loot box marketing in 2025, the target was a gacha game. [1] [3]

The word matters mostly for research: the legal, academic, and policy literature indexes under "loot box", not "gacha". The UK's call for evidence, the largest English-language policy review of the mechanic, uses the term throughout while explicitly covering randomized character acquisition. [2]

For the jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction picture, see gacha regulation by country. For the disclosure rules that loot box laws increasingly require, see rate disclosure.