Not to play just buy offers.
Winni has posted a click bait style of dramatic headline for this threadā¦
Are Casinoās banned in the UKā¦No
Are bookmakers banned in the UKā¦No
Are bingo halls banned in the UKā¦No
Is sports betting banned in the UKā¦No.
If the government of the UK put forward the new gambling act and it covers loot boxes, then that will mean that they become a licenced activity, with the gambling commission the official watch dog.
The UK HMRC will want the 40% gaming duty from the licenced activity, but it in no way means they will just ban any game from the UK that has loot boxes in it.
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Iām saying he has been paying attention to this legislation and itās not a question of if you or I or he thinks itās gambling, itās whether or not the UK parliament does. And from what heās saying, itās leaning towards āyesā.
Doesnāt affect me directly ā Iām not in the UK. But some in my alliance are.
Thereās another thread to discuss whether or not this game should be considered gambling; Iād much rather keep focused on the UK law in this one.
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Itās still an overly dramatic click bait style headline though.
Banned is highly unlikely.
Paying for a licence to operate in the UK is possible since the Gov does like money too.
Then, if that ever happens, companies need to decide if the fee is worth it to continue to operate.
If not we will all just VPN inā¦
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As I said above, very interesting area of discussion.
I have changed the thread title to something rather less definite as this the original over played the speculation I feel.
I think itās fair to bring people into the debate and read the linked articles without presenting it as a fait accompli.
This game is not gambling, but one of the feature could arguably be considered as gambling. So this game might arguably be considered like a mall with a casino inside.
The keyword is paying. You do not need to pay gems (in-game money) to open regular chest.
Gambling prize is not limited to money.
NB: I use āarguablyā because deciding whether lootbox is gambling or not is up to the court decision, not mine.
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Just going to add my own 2 cents to the conversation.
Do I believe that summoning in this game is gambling? Yes, yes I do.
Do I believe it should be blatantly outlawed? Ehhhhhhhhhhhh okay probably not.
But do I believe it should be heavily regulated? 1000% yes.
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āPostedā odds should be regularly inspected and tested by independent third party regulatory groups to ensure that they are, in fact, accurate.
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Those who are not of legal gambling age should not be allowed to play the game at all, so long as gambling is involved (most U.S. states strictly prohibit minors from entering the āgaming areasā of casinos)
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Limits should be placed preventing the prices from being ātoo highā or the odds being ātoo lowā.
And before someone tries to argue that these matters are arbitrary, and asks, āwho gets to decide what is too high and too low?ā Who decided the minimum gambling age in every country? Or the minimum driving age, or drinking age, or voting age? Or what speed limit is considered āsafeā for a given road? Or what level of blood alcohol content differentiates a dangerous intoxicated driver vs. a responsible driver who ājust had a couple of drinksā? Who decided the tax rates? Who decided the minimum legal wage? Societies as a whole usually end up coming up with these arbitrary numbers based on a combination of data and public opinion.
Will also add as a final noteā¦ people say that ācasinos donāt give you anything for free, this game gives you stuff for free.ā
Wrong. My local casino regularly sends me coupons for free spins on a giant slot machine with a top prize of $100,000 just for visitingā¦ free raffle tickets for prizes that they call out every hour or soā¦ they regularly offer coupons for free meals, and they have free fountain drinks for everyone playing in the casinoā¦ many Las Vegas casinos go even further by comping free hotel rooms, free entertainment, and free alcoholic drinks. All for the sole purpose of luring customers in with the expectation that they will eventually be tempted to lose gamble money there.
E&Pās free to play āoptionā is no different at all in this regard.
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believe me, iām sympathetic. but if you owned a business that only ever made money, hand over fist, day after day, why would you change the business model?
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Would I personally change that model? Yes I would, if I realized that my business model was harmful to people, and my conscience was bothering me about it.
Not saying Iād change it to make the business unprofitable, but Iād at least try to balance things so that I wasnāt constantly getting hate mail from my customers. 
But thatās just me.
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Ppl here saying that EP is not gambling are missing the point. The problem with lootboxes is that they potentially create a gambling addiction. The psychology behind them is exactly the same. Odds just enough to give you something goodish so you believe the jackpot is about to happen eventually. And and letās be honestā¦ Technically 3* heroes are not nothing but noone is really buying gems and coins to get a 3* hero. Thatās SG going around the gambling definition to make it look legal.
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going to channel a certain someone right nowā¦
someone recently posted something about customer metrics. maybe they should do some market research. while somewhat relevant, also kind of off-topic. cheers
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Believe me, I fully understand why E&P operates the way that it does, and why they have no interest in changing. Who in their right mind would take a voluntary pay cut just to appease customers? Majority of people wouldnāt.
But I have personally turned down high paying job offers because I found the jobs themselves to be ethically questionable. And while money is nice to have, I also have to be able to live with myself and feel confident that I did the right thing at the end of the day.
āGet off your high horse TGW, youāre only saying that because you never had money to begin with! If you did, then you wouldnāt care about anyone else either!ā
That might have been true if I had been born and raised in privilege, and never had to experience the opposite. But Iām 100% serious when I say that I could not be comfortable doing something āless than ethicalā for any company, no matter how much they were willing to pay me.
You can go ahead and ask my previous employers, that was one of the things they probably hated most about me.
At the end of the long work day, I still need to be able to go home and sleep at night. How can I sleep soundly knowing that I just screwed a bunch of people out of their hard earned money?
āOn 400 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, scented with the lovely bittersweet tears of losers like youā is the typical response I get when I pose that very question to the people who took the morally questionable positions I passed on.
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So I had poker session this evening hence why I had to be absent for a bit not the worst session finished like Ā£10 above expected value so a better then average night. Not by much though.
Anyway of course I dont think loot boxes will be banned in the UK obviously they will just be regulated the question I have is will empires and puzzles specifically be banned in the UK?
if they apply for a licence and adhere to the rules likely not but this is not just age verification like some people think.
If the game is classed as gambling they will be required to do affordability checks on people spending significant amounts. All poker sites at the moment are required not just to verify your age and identity but also to verify that you can afford to be gambling the amount of money you are.
This does mean for the big spenders spending several hundred or more a month Empires will be obligated to contact them and ask for bank statements/credit checks and have contact via email/phone call or other means of communication to verify that the individual can afford to spend money on the level that they are.
This could be a function carried out by the google play store or apple store depending which one your on but that complicates things because obviously buying music isnt gambling.
As others have said already it does not matter whether you agree or disagree with me that empires and puzzles is gambling what matters is if the relevant legislators decide it is gambling or not.
In regards to what gambling is/how we define gambling it is one of those concepts that most people think is an objective concept when really its rather subjective. We would likely all agree that roulette is gambling, However if you asked people whether sports betting and poker were gambling you would likely get different answers. In both sports betting and poker it is possible to make consistent profit by been educated and skilled in maths to the sufficient level. Therefore some people and some countries do not define these as gambling. Most of us would argue that they are gambling though.
Investments is one that can have opinions split down the middle as everyone knows you can make money investing but that does not change the fact that investments can go up or down in value. almost anything can be defined as gambling eg taking a job is an uncertain outcome pursuing a degree is taking a risk as well just as not taking a degree is.
there is little point in debating what constitutes gambling as almost no two people have an agreed upon definition. What is relevant is what the local legislation states as gambling and how the law regulates that.
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Yep, it will eventually come down to the legal technical jargon and how the courts interpret it.
But if you choose to compare E&P to say sports bettingā¦ in sports betting, you already know who is on each team, how well they have performed against other teams, and based on that data, you can maybe determine which team is more likely to win.
Or if you compare E&P to pokerā¦ in poker, the players themselves can use skills such as bluffing and intelligent card play to influence the overall outcome of the game.
Whereas E&P summons are essentially just slot machines. There is absolutely no element of skill or known stats at play. There are no proven methods to increase your odds of āwinningā a good hero.
You are simply spinning a wheel and you get whatever it lands on.
That is almost certainly gambling in every sense of the term.
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Iād wager that the only reason why this hasnāt happened earlier is because many of our politicians worldwide have a vested interest in the gambling industry or are otherwise being paid offā¦
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For some interesting insight into games of chance and their āworthā, for varied reasons, is āHow Not To Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinkingā by Jordan Ellenberg
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Have not read that one personallyā¦ but the basic premise of how math affects literally every aspect of our lives is 100% true.
(if however, the book goes on to argue that successful companies deserve to be successful simply because they have been mathematically successful, that is where they will quickly lose me)
Reminds me of a heated internet debate I once got in that I ended up ālosingā in terms of numbers of votesā¦ on whether it was more important for people to learn history, or to learn math. I voted for math. The majority voted for history.
Well, I still say that they were wrong. Popularity contests be damned. History is just a record of all of the stupid stuff we have done as a species. Math and science hold the keys to solving most of the worldās biggest problems.
Now if we are talking about gameās āworthā? There is no question that E&Pās current model is hugely successful. I never once disputed that.
What I question is, at what cost? How much of their success comes at the detriment of others? If I just accept the premise that financial success = correctā¦
That might means rightā¦
That power should always trump weaknessā¦ no matter the societal casualties that happen along the wayā¦
Well then, I must be āwrongā about nearly everything I personally happen to believe in.
Itās called intermittent reinforcement. The sad thing is the LACK of positive results actually STRENGTHENS the response.
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They almost sucked me in with that! Dirty, dirty trick. Here I am watching my fellow alliance mates pull 2 or 3 copies of every HotM, and I have yet to pull a single 5* of any kindā¦ I was half tempted to say āokay okay okay, enough of this bullcrap, Iām going to buy a million gems and summon every hero in the game!!!ā
Luckily the better half of my brain slapped me silly before I actually did it.
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Wahaha. Look whoās back?!?! I thought youāre not coming back here. Wahahaha.
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