Why it’s too easy for children to gamble and spend online, and what we can do about it

Underage gambling and unauthorised in-app purchases made by children have become growing concerns globally. With their highly engaging experiences, online gaming platforms are incredibly popular among children, but they can also expose young users to financial risk and gambling-like behaviour, often without parents even realising it’s happening.

The allure of in-app purchases

Platforms like Roblox are hugely popular among children and teenagers. Players can buy Robux (virtual currency) to upgrade avatars, buy accessories, or unlock features. And purchasing Robux is easy; too easy as one parent in South Wales discovered when her 9-year-old daughter unknowingly spent over £1,000 on Roblox over three months.

“Kids don’t see it as money. It is coins and a gaming app. They don’t connect that it is money youhave to pay for.” – Emma Bell (via: The Sun)

While platforms like Roblox offer parental controls to manage spending and content access, these measures are often difficult to configure and easy for determined kids to bypass, especially if parents aren’t particularly tech-savvy.

Youth gambling is on the rise

The issue isn’t limited to in-app spending. Underage gambling is another escalating concern with increasing numbers of children and adolescents engaging in gambling activities, often through online platforms. Furthermore, the convergence of gaming and gambling is increasingly blurring lines for young users. Features such as loot boxes and in-game microtransactions have been linked to gambling behaviours.

• Around 17.9% of adolescents worldwide have gambled in the last year, that’s roughly 160 million young people.

• A 2023 survey by the UK's Gambling Commission found that 31% of individuals aged 11–17 had engaged in some form of gambling in the previous year.

• A study by the University of Pennsylvania reported that 2.9 million youths aged 14–22 have gambled with money, and nearly 580,000 engaging in online gambling.

  
  

And these figures aren’t just numbers. They point to deeper societal challenges related to mental health, financial harm, and insufficient regulation.

Ease of access is a common theme

These are sobering challenges that are increasing in seriousness and consequence – yes, financially, but more importantly, the wellbeing of our younger generations. And there is a common theme here, which is the ease that children are able to access gambling platforms and in-app purchasing.  

If we look at the user experiences across all these different platforms, there is enormous diversity in how they are accessed and the pathways to purchase. But there is one thing they all have in common, there’s a payment. And because these are online platforms, they are all subject to the challenges that come with card-not-present (CNP) payments, which we all know are inherently unsafe. Because until recently, CNP was the only way you could pay online.

Bear with me here.

Card-present payments, such as how we pay in-store with card and PIN, enable categoric confirmation that the cardholder is making the purchase. You have a physical card, and the PIN provides verification.

When we pay online with CNP there is no physical card and no PIN, and therefore no categoric cardholder verification. This is why there is so much online payments fraud. 

This lack of safeguard is also why it’s so easy for underaged children to make in-app purchases and access online gambling.

If we only accepted card-present payments for things like in-app purchases and to access online gambling platforms, then this would create a significant barrier to entry for children. Because children would need access to both the card and the PIN to make a purchase.

This is especially important when we consider the types of cards children can access:

• Youth debit cards (age 13+) are usually non-contactless (meaning they must be swiped through a payment terminal) and designed for in-person use only.

• Scheme debit cards (age 16+) can be contactless and used online, though still under parental oversight.

• Credit cards are not issued to anyone under 18, though minors can sometimes be added as authorised users.

  
  

Burbank has developed technology that can actively screen a card when tapped to ascertain a minimum age limit of the cardholder. This allows certain platforms, like gambling sites, to block purchases from underage accounts when using card-present technology.

So, the critical key to all of this is enablement of card-present payments in online channels.

The solution already exists

There’s a way to do this, and it’s already available. It’s called CPoI® - Card-Present over Internet.

By enabling true cardholder verification in online environments, CPoI® addresses the root cause of many of these issues:

• It prevents children from making unauthorised purchases without an adult’s card and PIN.

• It allows gambling and gaming platforms to block underage transactions using Burbank's card filtering technology.

• It gives regulators and merchants a single, unified way to protect vulnerable users across multiple industries.

While technology has moved fast, protections for our youngest users haven’t kept up. Kids today are growing up in digital environments where spending and gambling can happen with a few taps, and often without understanding the consequences.

If we want to change this, we need smarter systems that build in safeguards from the start. CPoI® offers a practical, scalable solution that doesn’t just respond to the symptoms, it addresses the cause. Because protecting children should never be optional, and payment security should be for everyone.

Speak to our team today how to get CPoI®.