Written By Zeta Sovery, DTO

12 min read

Published 2:58 PM EST, Thu March 27, 2025

Tommy, age 10, hooked on playing the gacha-based game Lumos. (Unsplash/Emily Wade)

The reach of gambling spreads wide with the introduction of the digital age, and children as young as 9 develop gambling addictions through seemingly innocuous means. Parents have worried about the effects of video games or excessive screen time long since games have hit the screens. The possible consequential behaviour changes or influence were the main issues of parents. It would come as a surprise then, that the damages would come in material ways. 

On the morning of April 9th, a mother of three - Theresa Carpenter, received a notification of a $500 charge on her credit card. Thinking it's fraud she calls her bank only to find out the charge came from her own household. It was not in fact fraud, but the result of a budding addiction of her youngest Tommy. 

Moonglow- a rising contender in the gaming world. Their most recent game, Lumos, has earned the studio $500 million dollars just in the last year. Their secret? online gambling. It uses a gacha-based system that entices players to spend their money on new skins or loot boxes. The new skins rewards are never guaranteed, and some repeats are inevitable which encourages multiple plays until they finally get their prize. Some players report spending up to $2000 on Lumos to get a new skin of their favourite character, and Theresa's youngest was one of them.

Tommy, like many others, was hooked in by the colourful characters and riveting story, often caught up on the latest news about character reveals in the game. The gambling started off small, with in-game points making it possible to participate in some gachas, before it quickly turned into an obsession. The thrill of the gamble is too addicting, and the prizes too enticing. Normal methods of trying to curb the behaviour don't work and Theresa spoke about the withdrawal symptoms of her son after she tried banning access to the game for a week. “No- yeah he's (Tommy) addicted…”, Theresa says on an interview with one of our counselors. 

Online gambling, with the lack of physical transactions, make it easier to lose track of the money being spent. There is also the lack of regulations on online gambling that allows such blatant exploitative methods to be so common. In 2024 alone, there had been a rise of 5% of gacha-based games in the overall games released compared to years before. Theresa had to book her son for therapy sessions because she was worried about the long-term effects.

Regulations need to be set in place for online gambling to prevent harmful advertisements or game mechanics that target vulnerable individuals.