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UK Gambling Commission CEO Andrew Rhodes has responded to media reports surrounding illegal sites allowing currency from a children's video game to be used on illegal casinos, stating that the episode reflects the “ever-evolving threat we see around illegal gambling”.
Rhodes’ comments followed a recent Sky News investigation that revealed several illegal online casinos had allowed children to gamble using their accounts in Roblox, a game designed for children with around 80m daily active users.
“The bulk of the story by Sky News centres around the US, but features the UK too. We were able to get the sites closed virtually immediately and although they re-emerged in a different format (as the story says) they became geo-blocked,” Rhodes said in a social media post on December 17.
According to Sky News, illegal offshore casino sites are converting Robux, the in-game virtual currency of Roblox, into a currency that can be used in illegal casinos that are being accessed by children.
Several of the illegal casinos mentioned in the Sky News article have already had their access blocked from the UK, with one stating on its front page that it is now shutting down entirely due to pressure from the Roblox legal team.
“Since April we have had over 75,000 illegal pages removed from search engine results and closed over 250 illegal sites, but disruption takes many forms and, like the criminals, is constantly changing,” Rhodes warned.
Roblox constantly introduces updates to its safety systems and parental controls, with the latest in November 2024, allowing parents to access parental controls from their own devices rather than from their child’s device and monitor their child’s screen time, as well as adjust how children under the age of 13 can communicate.
Stephen Balkam, CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), said: “FOSI applauds Roblox’s ongoing efforts to prioritize the safety and well-being of its youngest users. By empowering parents with new controls that allow them to oversee their child’s activity in a flexible, meaningful way, Roblox is taking significant steps toward building a safer digital environment.”
However, the latest Roblox controversy is not the game's first, as adult content on the game created by users has been a longstanding and very public struggle for the game, which has millions of young players.
