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Roblox Accused of Concocting Illegal Gambling Ring for Minors - Bloomberg Law (news.bloomberglaw.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The complaint outlined the process by which minors can use the Roblox platform to gamble. After purchasing Robux through the platform, they can navigate to one of the gaming website defendants’ “virtual casinos” outside the Roblox ecosystem and link their Robux wallet to the gambling website, meaning Roblox can still keep track of electronic transfers, the lawsuit said.

While Roblox could halt this “illegal gambling ring,” Colvin and Sass argued that it’s “significantly enriched” by the scheme. They allege that Roblox charges a 30% fee on the websites’ conversion of Robux back into dollars, raking in “millions in annual cash fees.”

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (6 children)

outside the Roblox ecosystem

I have no love for Roblox, but if it's a completely different website, isn't this kinda...not their fault?

It sounds like those IRS scams that want you to pay with iTunes gift cards -- no one claims that Apple is running the scam.

The article claims they were aware and didn't stop it, and that's why they are at fault. Maybe they could've revoked the API keys for those gambling sites? But is that even how it's set up? (I don't actually know how Robux work.)

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (4 children)

The difference is you can't cash out Apple gift cards, and this is precisely why games generally don't allow it either: when you allow cash-token-cash conversions, then you turn the token into a cash-equivalent, becoming responsible for any misuse just the same as if you offered a banking account.

But Roblox got greedy, and not only do they allow cash-token-cash conversions (at a crazy rate of $100 USD = 10,000 R$ = $35 USD), but they also allow third parties to interact with it, with fully centralized knowledge and control.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh interesting.

But you can sell apple gift cards on eBay, yeah? Sure you won't get the full value, but you get most of it. And as you said, in this case Roblox is taking a cut for the conversion anyway.

So it seems like they could've washed their hands of this by making Robux transferable/ebayable: the "casinos" would still exist, they would still benefit from the popularity of the casinos, and the Robux are still "worth something". But they got too greedy and dug too deep by trying to become the "eBay" in the situation and take a cut off both ends, and now they might be forced to make Robux effectively worthless.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Yup, pretty much that. I guess Roblox could remove the conversion back to cash, and convert to gift cards instead. They could still skim the 30% on both ends, by making the gift cards in like "Robux diamonds" or something, like what Instagram does.

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