Illegal Casinos Exploit Roblox’s Popularity

A Sky News inquiry led to findings which showed that several casinos had been allowing children to gamble with Roblox’s in game currency ‘Robux’ and revealed that some users who were between the ages of 12-16 had been betting large figures up to £175,000 on some of the sites. Although these casinos were not published on Roblox itself, they did allow users to bet using Robux, the in-game currency, on blackjack and slot games. Any winnings from these games could then, in turn, be transferred and withdrawn as cryptocurrency.

In response to the findings of Sky’s inquiry, the UK Gambling Commission has since stepped in and shut down these unlicensed casino sites, including Bloxmoon, Bloxflip and RBLXWild. These sites allowed users to purchase in-game currencies by purchasing 100 Robux for about £1.

The UKGC is launching an urgent investigation into the case and is shutting down any other casinos that may be or may have been using Roblox for payment or cashout payments. Roblox has been under scrutiny since the incident and is currently engaged in court proceedings against the parents of five of the children who had used these online casinos with Robux. Evidence has since emerged that Roblox may have been aware of its currency being used as it sent takedown requests to the sites back in 2022. This does not bode well for the games company in the court case, especially as nearly half of its users are thought to be ages 12 or under, and it has an estimated 80 million daily users.

Interviews conducted by Sky with one of the children who had been caught out by the scam revealed that he wasn’t even aware that he was gambling or committing an offence. He said, “I just thought it was something you could do to make extra money” and was totally unaware of the implications of spending such large amounts of reach cash once they were transferred to the in-game currency.