Suit Alleging Site Allowed Children to Gamble Can Proceed
Two California mothers allege that the website Roblox allowed their children to gamble. A judge ruled that the case can proceed but minus any RICO allegations following Roblox's Motion to Dismiss.
Roblox is an online gambling platform created in 2004 that allows users to program and play games created by themselves or other users. Though free to play, in-game purchases are available through a virtual currency called Robux.
While the platform has been praised for its creativity, Roblox is also accused of everything from exploitative practices towards children to extremism.
As far as the gambling suit goes, Rachelle Colvin and Danielle Sass have accused Roblox of facilitating access to and profiting off of “virtual casinos that exist outside the Roblox ecosystem.”
The company argued that the plaintiffs’ claims were barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which prevents any “interactive computer service” — in this case, Roblox — from being held liable for third-party content published on its platform. The court, however, held that Section 230 doesn’t apply here because Roblox isn’t being held liable for content published on its platform. It’s being accused of “facilitating transactions between minors and online casinos that enable illegal gambling, and for allegedly failing to take sufficient steps to warn minors and their parents about those casinos.”
The lawsuit explicitly names three gambling websites: Satozuki, Studs, and RBLXWild, which has since been purchased by Bloxmoon. Clearly Bloxmoon is an online casino platform that offers blackjack, roulette and slots, among other games.
Satozuki Limited B.V., Studs Entertainment Ltd. and RBLXWild Entertainment LLC are each named in the lawsuit. Satozuki Limited is licensed in the online gambling jurisdiction of Curacao.
“Throughout this process, Roblox keeps track of all these electronic transfers and has knowledge of each transfer that occurs in its ecosystem,” the complaint alleges.
More from MSN:
The company compared Robux purchases to “purchasing cinema or amusement park tickets” since the users were paying “for the pleasure of entertainment per se, not for the prospect of economic gain.” This argument didn’t persuade the judge, who noted that movie or amusement park tickets don’t lose their value once they’re purchased.
“Those tickets do have economic value, even if they cannot be exchanged for cash,” the March 26th order, filed in the US District Court for California’s Northern District, reads. “Similarly, when someone purchases Robux on the Roblox platform, they do so because they can exchange Robux for in-game experiences that are of value to them. There is no reason to distinguish the movie or the roller coaster ride in the real world from an in-game experience in the virtual world.”
ScreenRant does a good job of explaining how Roblox encourages gambling:
The in-game store in Roblox functions similarly to the one in Fortnite, with players exchanging real money for the online currency to acquire the desired items. The principal controversy comes from a different feature that makes it possible for the company to not only sell assets costing hundreds of dollars, but also force players to gamble to acquire certain items. In Roblox, the prices of limited collectibles in the Avatar Shop vary depending on how many players acquire it, while in Fortnite, the prices of the bizarre crossover skins and other accessories available for purchase remain the same throughout all versions of the game.
“But these are children we’re talking about,” the judge wrote. Turning Roblox’s amusement park analogy on its head, the judge wrote that this situation was more akin to “a casino setting up shop outside an amusement park and luring a child away to wager and lose the tickets to an illegal gambling operation—tickets that the casino can then exchange for cash.”
- Nagesh Rath, Gambling911.com
