How gacha works
Gacha games such as Genshin Impact are free to download, and they make their money from pulls. You buy premium currency, swap it for pulls, and each pull gives you a random character or item. The best ones are rare. In Genshin the base chance of a 5-star character is 0.6% per pull, softened by a “pity” system that guarantees one by pull 90.
What the law says
Gacha passes the first two parts of the test easily. You pay, and chance decides what you get. It’s the prize that keeps it out of gambling law in most countries, because the characters you win can’t be sold for money, and selling a whole account usually breaks the game’s rules.
Regulators have still stepped in. Japan, where the name comes from, banned “complete gacha” in 2012. That was a setup where collecting a full set of random items unlocked an extra prize, and the consumer agency ruled it an illegal prize scheme. China has required published odds since 2017. In the US, the FTC fined HoYoverse $20 million in January 2025, saying it misled players about odds and hid real prices behind layers of in-game currency.
What the research says
Gacha-specific research is still thin. A 2025 study of 281 young adults in Hong Kong found only a weak link between monthly gacha spending and problem gambling scores. The bigger body of loot box research, which covers the same kind of mechanic, finds a clearer link, especially in teenagers.
What it means for you
The pity system is the most useful thing to understand. It caps how much one character can cost, and it’s worth working out what that cap is in real money before you start pulling for a limited banner. If you notice yourself spending more to chase one character, or topping up to avoid losing your progress towards pity, that’s the point where gacha starts to behave like gambling.
Questions people also ask
What is pity in gacha games?
A guaranteed rare reward after a set number of pulls. In Genshin Impact it's a 5-star character by pull 90 on the character banner.
Why did Japan ban kompu gacha?
In 2012 Japan's Consumer Affairs Agency ruled that "complete gacha", where you get a reward for collecting a full set of random items, was an illegal prize scheme under a 1962 consumer law.
What did the FTC do to Genshin Impact?
It fined the developer $20 million in January 2025. Under-16s now need a parent's consent to buy pulls, and the game must show odds and the real-money cost of its currencies.
Do gacha games have to publish their odds?
In China since 2017 and South Korea since 2024 it's the law. In Japan it's industry self-regulation, and in the US it's required for HoYoverse under its FTC order.
Sources
- China Ministry of Culture, notice on regulating online game operations (2016, in force May 2017)
- South Korea Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, probability item disclosure from 22 March 2024 (2024)
- Bloomberg, Japan consumer agency says complete gacha feature illegal (2012)
- FTC, Genshin Impact developer banned from selling loot boxes to teens without parental consent (2025)
- Engadget, China forces game producers to reveal loot box odds (2016)
- Tang et al. (2025), gacha spending and problem gambling in Hong Kong young adults, Frontiers in Psychiatry
- Zendle and Cairns (2018), Video game loot boxes are linked to problem gambling, PLoS ONE