iGaming Daily

Andrew McCarron (00:00.547)
Hello and welcome to iGaming Daily brought to you by OptiMove, the number one CRM solution for the iGaming market. I'm James Ross and today I'm joined by iGaming expert senior journalist, Danny Lee, where on today's episode we will look into the fascinating intersection of gaming, gambling and regulation. Today we're going to dissect the video game, Bellatro, which is the roguelike card game that sparking debate about gaming and gambling.

Yesterday, the game had its rating dropped, initially receiving an 18 plus rating from the Pan-European Game Information, otherwise known as PEGI, due to its poker elements. This has now been reclassified to a 12 plus, along with another game titled, Look Be a Landlord. And this will be the focus of today's episode of iGaming Daily. Danny, welcome. How are you doing today? Not too bad, James. It's always fun to do one of these podcasts, kind of crossovers between

different sort of industries and obviously covering slots a lot of the time on slot beats and I game expert. It's quite fun to see that crossover between video gaming as well and get to dive into a topic like this. Yeah. I'm a video game nut. whenever these conversations or topics kind of intertwine, I jump at them at the first opportunity I can possibly get. And this is the earliest we can actually talk about it and Bellatro. I've played it. I've enjoyed it. I was actually kind of

swayed to play it by John Romero when we did a interview with him before Casino Beats Summit last year, now known as SBC Summit Malta for this year. Great recommendation. Have you played it? I haven't played it. I've got many friends that have told me about it and sort of how, I guess, like addictive, I guess is the right word to use if it's not a gambling game that we're talking about. Yeah. How addictive it can be and

It's obviously it's like taking the mobile gaming industry by storm a bit last year. I've seen that it's won many awards and things and I've certainly heard a lot about it. Yeah, I remember, I sat in on John Romero's keynote at Christina Beats Malta last year. Again, now SBC Summit Malta. And he did mention kind of when it comes to innovation that Bellatron was a really great example of how we can take inspiration from the video game world and kind of inspire change in poker, which to be honest,

Andrew McCarron (02:25.398)
is very hard to kind of innovate within. So this story kind of is interesting because sometimes it might actually contrast what he actually said and maybe the kind of main premise of it. But the game itself was, like you said, well, maybe one of a better phrase, addictive. But it was one of the most successful games in 2024. You know, it was nominated for the Game of the Year award by the Game Awards. That narrowly missed out to Astrobot, but it also won the best indie game at the Golden Joysticks award.

and the best mobile game at the Game Awards. it's hugely successful, yet it was perceived as a gambling game. Now the question is, is it a gambling game? And before we kind of delve into the kind of like the nuances of everything, I kind of want to ask you the outright of what you think this game actually is. you think it's a gambling game? Do you think it should be rated 18 for gambling? It's such a-

tricky topic isn't it trying to define these sort of games like there's countless games that we could have this debate over, Bolatro obviously a key part of it is the fact that whether it's got like loot box elements that we can touch on later or not it's a game that incorporates like elements of actual gambling games whereas sort of other games that might have these sort of gambling elements within them are more focused on

Like it could be a sport or it could be like a first person shooter type game. So because of the fact that it's got these multiple elements, you might think that maybe that 18 plus rating was sort of deserved in a way. But at the same time, you know, it's a, it's, it's tricky for the regulators to try and define what these games are themselves. to be honest myself, I haven't seen the game, seen footage of it. It doesn't seem like there's any harm that could be being caused to any place.

Other than the fact, like I said earlier, it might be a bit addictive and it might keep them on the phones a bit more, there's, there's the not actually losing money, which a lot of people would define gambling as like, you're not in a sense that you're losing money in a way to try and gain money in some way to get financial gain from what you're spending. Yeah. I'll give my thought in a minute, but I just want to jump on kind of what you said about it's hard for the regulator within the video game space or for Peggy to kind of

Andrew McCarron (04:43.193)
give a rating to something like this. But I think maybe the issue that's kind of risen from this and the developer of Bellatro, who's local thunk, nobody knows who he actually is. He's just known as local thunk. That's what he's took issue to, I think, when it was originally given an 18 plus, that you have games like FIFA, you have games like Fortnite, that FIFA is a three plus game, yet it incorporates elements of loot boxes in there, which

we'll touch on in the second half because Steve Hall, the editor of the Play Protection Hub, has kind of a really good insight into that. But that's where his issue came from. Now, for me, from my perspective, the game itself is poker in a different kind of way. But the main premise is that you have to kind of get the higher base tier cards, so that, know, the Royal Flushes, the Straits and stuff like that. You have to get those cards

to get higher score and higher ratings. And that to me is teaching poker. Now is teaching the same as gambling. One could argue it will lead to that in the future. So that's an interesting element where I think maybe dropping it to an 18 plus isn't the most sensible of options. I mean, for local thunk, it's brilliant for him because he's not tethered to an 18 plus. can, that game can be sold.

to more of wider audience who will create more of a revenue from that. So fair play. But I do think there are forms of gambling elements in there. Maybe not from a monetary transactional point of view, but definitely from an educational teaching of the game point of view. And that there is the RG responsible gambling issue, which I think it faces. think it might just be a case of these regulators sort of needing to...

broaden the definitions of what is gambling and what isn't when it comes to things like this. gaming is constantly evolving and these features are going to keep being implemented into games that are at the forefront of the mobile gaming industry, of the video gaming industry and they're going to have to try and keep up with the fact that because this game has done so well it's likely that other developers are going to look at the fact that they've taken a form of gambling, feature within gambling and made it into a game that obviously

Andrew McCarron (07:08.653)
hasn't been considered as gambling, so might, but on the app, so now particularly with Peggy's rating of now changing it down to 12, it clearly isn't considered gambling by them either. But they're gonna like try and produce more games that are like this. with that, obviously players need to be protected. And if age ratings are gonna be being reduced for games like this, then they need to make sure that maybe there's some other form of protections in place just to make sure that that

I guess, education that you're talking about in gambling in terms of like how to play poker doesn't lead to a massive influx of young people or players 12 from above actually, you know, being encouraged to play actual poker and move on to gambling. Like it would be quite interesting to see that correlation there of people, I guess, because it's been an 18 plus game that, um,

have started playing belattro and going, no, you know what, it might be quite fun to incorporate these skills that I'm learning and I'm doing quite well in into actual like real money gambling and gaming. Yeah. I mean, there were, there was a problem gambling severity index, the PGSI. I can't remember the exact figures, but what they do look into is the youth and how kind of they kind of got into gambling. And if it was due to family members playing

some type of gambling product, either it's an online slot on their phone, either we're taking into a retail store, which I don't think they're allowed to anyway. Or even in this sense, if you're playing on your Xbox and you're playing prominence poker, if you're playing bilateral, which is now perceived not to be a gambling product, all of this may potentially, hypothetically, have an impact on the youth growing up and then getting

Again, not addicted to gambling, but becoming interested in poker. And if you do it in the right way, if you do it in the entertainment way, that's absolutely fine. But to be exposed at a younger age of 18 plus, I think treads on murky waters, I'd say.

Andrew McCarron (09:13.583)
Yeah, definitely. mean, we've seen games like this come around before that you sort of look at anything. If I had children, would I want them to be able to like access this game? 10 years time, I won't touch it. Exactly. like I looked at Coin Master, for example, having like written a lot about slots and you see how the mechanic basically does just work like a slot title, but it's not considered gambling because you can't make any financial gain from it, even though you can make sort of these freemium

purchases that these developers refer to. it's like I say, it's a bit of a gray area. It's very like murky waters, so to speak. And I suppose it's up to regulators to decide and listen to experts, listen to trade bodies and decide these are the specifications that we're making for what is a gambling game and what isn't and hand out the appropriate ratings to these games. Coin Master is an interesting one because again, if you actually look on

both Apple's App Store and then Google's Google Play App Store, I think that's what it's called. Both of them have different adriens. Apple has a 17 plus. Well, Google's is 18 plus. So again, there's that inconsistency that I've said his name a thousand times, but local funks, sorry. That's the kind of example local funks had about inconsistencies. And maybe that's where when it comes to video games, there needs to be that conversation. There needs to be

tighter regulations when it does come to maybe some form of DLC that has that RNG element into it. We haven't mentioned PEGI though, like they've released a statement that they said they're going to accept the decision of its Complaints Board and that it will continuously evolve in line with cultural expectations and the guidance of independent experts. And that means there are going to be new rule changes, which will mean gambling themes do not automatically lead to an 18 plus rating.

Instead, it will be limited to games that simulate casinos and betting halls.

Andrew McCarron (11:17.155)
I mean, that to me kind of just kind of Poker stars, VR, gambling world. That stares towards again, more murky waters of there's no inconsistencies, but there's no clarity on what people in the video game world or even Peggy understand to be gambling product. think there's sort of bit of an easy win there for people that are trying to develop similar games to this as well and try and maybe make the next Bellator or something that incorporates similar elements in the

they just don't make it look like they're simulating a casino or a betting hall, then that's it. They're going to, they're going to avoid these sort of regulations. But again, to play devil's advocate, should they be developing games like this? It's, it's a hard one. Cause again, from a point of view, you're teaching someone how to play poker from a safe environment, teaching them the rules. And again, there's no physical gambling in there, there's gateways for a reason. That's why they call them gateways.

These games are successful. Like, Bellatro has just shown that if you incorporate these sort of elements into these titles, you can have a really effective game. Something that gains a lot of traction, becomes really popular. And for a mobile game like Bellatro, it's performed really well. I rarely sort of hear about a mobile game that's come out. To be honest, these days, I don't really...

take part in mobile gaming myself, but I'd heard about Bellatro like this big boom within that game last year, of almost like everywhere at some points. Perfect. We are, I think we've run over in the first half, so we're to take a quick ad break. When we get back, we're going to hear from Steve Hoare, the editor at the Play Protection Hub on his thoughts on Bellatro and also look into the dip feature that is in Bellatro. So stay tuned.

Welcome back. As I mentioned, we're going to start off this section listening to Steve Haw, what he has to say on Bellatro because again, when it comes to this and lowering the age rating, the conversation then has to lead to play protection and responsible gambling. Certainly when it includes people under the age of 18, but they also have the at risk people as well who are obviously who can be over 18. So this is what Steve has to say. this Bellatro game is an interesting

Andrew McCarron (13:42.169)
case study, I guess, I don't think because it looks like poker or even performs like poker means that it should be an 18 plus game. It's I mean, that's even before we get into poker being a game of skill and skill games and should they be regulated and blah, blah, blah, which is a fairly hot topic at the moment. But I think

The issue with Bellatro is it seems that you can buy new outfits, power ups and so on, which is fine, but they're a lucky dip, which means you don't know what they're going to be until you buy them, which gives them a very similar dynamic to loot boxes. Now, loot boxes per se aren't a gambling product and so on, necessarily an 18 plus product as it stands, but there's just been some research.

released by Professor Mark Griffiths and some of his esteemed research buddies about loot box buying. And it concluded fairly firmly that loot box buying is associated with gambling disorder and internet gaming disorder, which is, you know, video games, not just gambling games. And also that loot box buying is strongly associated with depression, anxiety, stress and impulsivity, which are

mental health symptoms. my point being in a roundabout way that if these dynamics, these lucky dip things that you can buy are the same as loot boxes, then the current research suggests that perhaps they could be an 18 plus. There certainly is an argument for making them 18 plus, although there's no laws or actual advice.

saying they should be at the moment. However, the advisory board for safer gambling, which is the gambling commission's advisory board for safer gambling has argued that loot boxes should be classed as gambling. However, they are barely strongly anti gambling the advisory board for safer gambling. So take that how you will. Yeah, so that's

Andrew McCarron (16:04.786)
That's kind of what I think about Bellatro. that was Steve Haw and an interesting point that he brought up was loot boxes and this, I believe it's called dip. Is it dip or drip? Is it lucky dip? Something like that. It's that type of feature, isn't it? Where you spend money on an item and you don't know what you're going to get. So there's that sort of element of gambling within that purchase. Yeah. It is the lucky dip style. And that's what Bellatro offers. Like you said, it

contains outfits, power-ups and other bonuses. And we've seen other games in the past, we've mentioned it in the first half, so we can dive a bit more into it now. And FIFA, they offer loot boxes in terms of when they're within their ultimate team, they pick it, where you can, you purchase FIFA points or use in-game currency to buy packs, which are RNG generated and you get either you get a team of the year in BAPE or you get a Danny Welbeck. Danny Welbeck.

I was going to say Rasmus Hoylum, but you know, can get either amazing or you can get off. You don't really know what you're going to get. And there's other games which in the past have fallen foul to kind of loot boxes. A key one was EA's EA again, their Star Wars Battlefront 2. When that was released, it was heavily loot boxed to the point it was pay to win. The fans, there was an outcry of it to the point that they scrapped it completely, but that ruined the game in a sense as well, because there was no nothing really to achieve.

What are your thoughts on loot boxes? Because there's no, there's no tight regulations on them in the video game space. It's, it's such a tricky debate really, like as someone that like grew up playing FIFA Ultimate Team, sort of like begging my parents on weekends to just give me a bit of money for some FIFA points. Like I understand that these features, do have a lot of crossover with actual gambling and that's sort of like, there is a sense of addictiveness there that some young people could be obviously so prone to with these games just wanting

to get the best items or the best players for the team or whatever like that and a lot of the time when you make these purchases there's the majority of the time you don't really feel like you've actually sort of gained something that was worth the money you spent. I know that that was the case a lot of the time with FIFA and like a lot of my friends who would be making the same purchases often be a case of oh it feels like a waste of money and sort of like maybe half the time or even

Andrew McCarron (18:24.466)
even more than half the time when you do make these purchases. But it's such a tricky debate because it all comes down to how you actually define gambling, which is the big question really. Isn't it? the fact that because you can't actually financially gain from the purchases you are making, does that mean that it's not actually real money gambling? It's you're paying for a product that, I mean, I know FIFA didn't always have this, but they've now included like sort of percentages that show

how likely you are to gain a certain product or player that they offer. Because at the end of the day, you are buying a product that does state that you might get this or you might get that, but you're not going to make any money back from it. Is that gambling or not? And obviously it varies between different people. It varies between different countries. Cause you look at Belgium, I think it was maybe three, four, five years ago now, they

They banned loot boxes altogether, right? It wasn't just specific games that have been banned or elements within games have been banned, I believe that. Yeah, it was in 2018 that Belgium banned loot boxes on the basis that they violated the country's gambling laws, but they don't currently affect games, pegiagery and that's just something to consider as well. Yeah, it's more murky water, I suppose. And so I guess they just, don't include those elements in the game that they offer. So maybe if, I don't know if you were playing FIFA Ultimate Team in Belgium, you just can't.

can't buy FIFA points, you can't purchase these products. I can see why they would do that to be honest. Like I said, I haven't experienced it and known what it's like to want to spend that money on something that you're not guaranteed that you're to really get or gain from a lot of the time. It's such a fine line between video game and just an element within that to make it engaging and more fun and then actual gambling. when you think that

FIFA Ultimate Team can, I mean, they won't be very good, but a four year old is allowed to, but a three year old is allowed to play FIFA Ultimate Team. And should they be, should they have access to something that basically is gambling? You got to say no, right? Yeah, you have to say no. And again, my perspective, I know the argument is, is it gambling? It doesn't involve money. I believe anything that has an RNG element into it and has a case of you, you give virtual currency. So, I mean, essentially that potentially is what sweepstakes are really.

Andrew McCarron (20:53.776)
is virtual currency for the gain of getting something back in game. this is what Bellatro has with its lucky dip feature. Like that's RNG kind of focus. That's you'll put your virtual currency in there and you'll try and get these cosmetics or power ups back. You don't know what you're going to get. You are gambling on getting something good just because there's no monetary value in there. It doesn't mean that again, isn't that gateway to

potential addiction in the future because you're being exposed to these emotions around gambling. So interesting. I think we are semi running out of time, but I just want to touch on something really quickly because obviously Bellatro is an 18 and Local Thunk has kind of won his battle to get the PEGI rating lowered. Yeah. We talk about DLCs, downloadable content for those who don't know what that abbreviation is. And now they're a 12 plus

They're still introducing 18 plus DLC that's coming out because they're getting Fallout 4 DLC and they're getting Dead by Daylight DLC, both 18 plus games. Yet you're tailing that to a 12 plus audience. Aware, that means adults can kind of give their consent if they want to play it. But there's a sense of hypocrisy coming about this now where you're saying gambling, the game isn't a gambling so it shouldn't be an 18, but you're still introducing 18 plus elements into the game. I find that a bit hypocritical.

Don't know you want to thought on that. think it's just adding another layer to all of this sort of confusion and the difficulty to actually regulate these games and difficulty, I guess, sort of with parents as well that would be dealing with their children having access to these games. And to be honest, maybe as this sort of change from PEG is a bit of a recent thing, maybe that's going to add a lot of...

maybe a more difficult challenge for that local thunk to actually bring those sort of elements from games that are over 18 into a game that is now targeted at 12 to 18 year olds as well. It's just a minefield really it seems. It has been for years now this whole loot box idea and gambling within video gaming and it's hard to see where there's an end point with this until everyone decides either it's all above board or it's all, you know, illicit.

Andrew McCarron (23:10.066)
You're bang on, it's hard to see an end point. But until then, we'll keep following the developments of Bellatra, of Peggy's ratings in terms of gambling or gambling presences or, know, poker presence in games. And you'll be able to find that all on SPC's roster of websites, including iGaming Expert, which Danny, you're doing a fantastic job on that. I'll leave any links to articles in description below. But apart from that, I've been James Ross. I've been joined by iGaming Expert's senior journalist, Danny Lay. And this has been iGaming Daily. Thank you.