From time to time, ML is offering discounted prices for gem packs and chests. Most of those offers are not worthy to buy such as the regular relic chest in my opinion, but there are those which are truly cool such as those Master Pack which consists of The Judgement, Gems, and runes.

This time we have encountered what seems to be a "Lucky Chest". This Lucky Chest will either give you 25-100 gems ranging from $2-$3. In my country its worth $2.24

The name "Lucky" sounds promising to be honest, I thought It was a free chest that will give you small gems and will either temporarily replace the free chest, no and no. Instead we got those another "Limited Time Grab Now Or You Will Never Get This Offer Ever Again So Grab Your Parent's Credit Card And Buy Now".

Basically I'm Free2player so if any players out there who bought the chest would be so kind and post a screenshot of what they got because I'm too poor to buy those kinds of Luck.

In the end, this offer is really cool but not for me and I recommend buying it. I wish you luck you will get 100

For me it's 300-1200 gems in the chest at the price of 300 gems (I'm lvl 89). But everything is super expensive on android and I can't buy it on facebook, so I'll pass.

My baby account (level 64) has the $1.99 lucky chest. My main account (level 130) has the $19.99 chest. If my main account was offered the $1.99, I'd probably buy it. I'm not dropping $20 though.

Isn't this chest actually gambling? Especially when they run gem offers alongside it, you can end up worse off? Does anyone know the laws/regulations?

@VargRanger of course it's gambling.

Off-topic: I don't understand something. I get that the chest is 20 dollars and in my countrys currency it should be 4968 (I did calculations), however it's actually 8699!

On facebook I can buy 300 gems for 5058 (right now), which is around the correct prize.
And as you can see

the prices include all applicable taxes.

So why is it over 60% more expensive?

It looks like it's not 20 dollars here, it almost 35 dollars

The VAT in my country is 27%

In my opinion, and it may not be worth much, but this latest gimmick seems to constitute gambling. To make i even worse, this is being peddled to children/minors who can buy simply using cash to get a google play card.

Minors/children cannot buy lottery tickets or gamble in casinos. This would seem to violate those prohibitons.

In any event, one offer i just saw was $30 for 2000 gems plus some food. That seems a better deal and a sure thing, not a bet.

@keki14 in my eyes any lootbox is gambling, but not in eyes of government (yet), but this chest is surely recognisable as regulated gambling?
To answer your question, that is something else sp dont do is currency conversion, $19.99 is roughly £15 but the cost of the chest is £19.99 so i imagine it is the same with you.

@VargRanger very interesting ...

I checked another Google Play game and the item for the same price (20 dollars) is much closer to the real value (it's 6890 instead of 8699).

@jktclee and all the others on gambling chests. Why do you think SP is offering LUCKY chests...cause they're not selling chests like they used to. So totally gambling and it would be great if ALL PLAYERS could beat their gambling problem and not BUY any chests. Free of course is good.

@VargRanger said in Review: Lucky Chest:

Isn't this chest actually gambling? Especially when they run gem offers alongside it, you can end up worse off? Does anyone know the laws/regulations?

Not entirely. Gambling often results in winning absolutely nothing at all. With loot boxes, and with these lucky boxes in particular, you get something. Both Game Theory and Extra Credits did a couple videos on the topic. Interesting stuff.

Additionally, you don't win actual money and can't convert whatever your prize is to money or even try to turn around and sell what you've won. That's typically a pretty hard and fast rule to the definition of gambling.

@jktclee said in Review: Lucky Chest:

In my opinion, and it may not be worth much, but this latest gimmick seems to constitute gambling. To make i even worse, this is being peddled to children/minors who can buy simply using cash to get a google play card.

Minors/children cannot buy lottery tickets or gamble in casinos. This would seem to violate those prohibitons.

In USA and most countries, laws and regulations require companies to reimburse people whose purchases have been made by minors. Those make up an incredibly minor fraction of purchases. Game companies have little interest selling directly to minors it's such a colossal headache.

Is it possible to do some action agains this pathetic company? If we all complain or report to somewhere, law regulators may look into this and punish them?

@jacinto That's not how the legal system works. You can't "punish" people for breaking a law that doesn't exist. Your wallet will do the talking. If SP loses (or just plain doesn't earn profits) off of a certain method, they won't do it. Plain and simple. If they make money off of it, they'll do it. That's how simple supply and demand works.

If you think this game or Social Point are so bad that they need to be "punished" why in the world are you playing this game?

@sansot everything you have said is so ridiculous and naive, that I will have to believe that you are a kid or something.
If they are doing something that could be considered gambling in a game without any age regulations, and we can inform the legal authorities to investigate such things (depending on each country regulations) of course they can get punished in many ways (legally speaking, obviously) and forced to stop these activities, should they find anything considered illegal or against specific Regulations (I’m not into laws, that is why I was asking)
I love this game (loved) and I hate this company which is bringing it down to hell (since Take Two purchased them)

@jacinto said in Review: Lucky Chest:

@sansot everything you have said is so ridiculous and naive, that I will have to believe that you are a kid or something.

Lol.

@jacinto said in Review: Lucky Chest:

(I’m not into laws, that is why I was asking)

I am into laws, that is why I was answering. But you do you, my friend.

@sansot that’s exactly how the legal system works. Prime example fantasy sports betting. It was fine for a bit, the NFL, MLB etc were even Big investors. Then it got big enough, enough people complained about the unfairness of it and the shady advertising. Then states started to make it illegal.

@testcyp Sure, but that's not what I was referring to in the least. Jacinto asked about doing something to get Social Point punished. That requires laws already on the books. To repeat myself, you can't be punished for breaking a law that doesn't exist, that's not how the legal system works. That help clarify?

And loot box models have been held by various jurisdictions worldwide to not be gambling as you cannot earn or cash out real money and there's no chance getting nothing when you pay. You're always getting something. New Zealand is a recent notable example of this issue.

You (or anyone) are welcome to argue that they should be considered gambling. I'm not trying to argue that point. Instead, I think the far more effective approach to business models you don't like is to hit them where it hurts- financially.

I do not understand why a person would play the game and do business with a company that is employing invidious and allegedly predatory business practices. If one feels strongly on the issue, said person ought not engage with that company. But this was deemed to be "naive and ridiculous" by my esteemed colleague above.

I watched someone on YouTube open 8 of these chests for £19.99 each, and they got as follows:

360 gems
420 gems
300 gems
300 gems
300 gems
480 gems
900 gems
1200 gems

So until the final 2 openings, it was a total rip off. And overall, probably 30% less gems than you could have got using the same amount of cash to just buy the gems from the shop.

@Clackers said in Review: Lucky Chest:

I watched someone on YouTube open 8 of these chests for £19.99 each, and they got as follows:

360 gems
420 gems
300 gems
300 gems
300 gems
480 gems
900 gems
1200 gems

So until the final 2 openings, it was a total rip off. And overall, probably 30% less gems than you could have got using the same amount of cash to just buy the gems from the shop.

I just watched it too and Isn't it weird that he got 300 gems for 3 consecutive chest? I think this is not a "Lucky" chest at all or the player was just on the bad side of luck. Well In the end they give him 1.2k but that was the 8th chest, a total of $160 dollars.. I barely save about $5 a week from my school allowance

All chests are a form of gambling, but these chests are completely inappropriate for a 'family game' that is played by people from 6 to 96.

They really need to be more transparent with these offers by showing each of the different rewards and the odds/chances of getting each one.