If you’ve played Balatro, you’d know that the game includes poker hands, because they are the hands you can play in order to score points, and playing hands specific to the Joker cards you have active can not only help you succeed, but win your whole run. Playing nothing but pairs, for example, can win you a whole run.
Over the course of playing Balatro, you’ll become more and more familiar with different kinds of poker hands, which makes you faster at Balatro. And according to the Pan European Game Information rating system (PEGI), the knowledge you’ve gained from Balatro, which is knowing what different poker hands are, has also made you knowledgeable and skilled at poker.
Which clearly means that there’s gambling in this game, and so it must be rated 18+. That’s the conclusion PEGI came to, giving developer LocalThunk’s card game that doesn’t feature mechanics like betting, or bluffing, or any methodologies around actually gambling.
In response to the rating, LocalThunk shot back at PEGI on social media, pointing out the fact that while Balatro, a game without any actual gambling, is given an 18+ rating for using playing cards, while a game that does actually have gambling and gambling mechanics, such as EA Sports FC 25, is only rated 3+.
“Since PEGI gave us an 18+ rating for having evil playing cards maybe I should add microtransactions/loot boxes/real gambling to lower that rating to a 3+ like EA Sports FC,” wrote LocalThunk this past Friday.
The description provided by PEGI for Balatro claims that the game teaches “by way of images, information and gameplay – skills and knowledge that are used in poker.”
It does not then go on to explain how Balatro includes betting mechanics, or bluffing strategies consistent with poker. Likely because Balatro includes neither.
Instead, from there it equates the collecting of ‘chips’ in Balatro, which are functionally no different than earning points, and the knowledge of what different poker hands are, to be Balatro teaching players how to play poker.
“As the game goes on, the player becomes increasingly familiar with which hands would earn more points. Because these are hands that exist in the real world, this knowledge and skill could be transferred to a real-life game of poker.”
Anyone who has spent under an hour with Balatro would be able to tell you that there’s in fact no hard and fast rule as to which hands you can play that would earn you more points. Due to its rougelike nature, it could be that pairs, to harken back to the aforementioned example, are the strongest hand you could play.
Other runs, it could be that playing a straight, is your strongest hand. It’ll never be the case that a straight will always be a better hand to play than a pair, or vice versa.
Despite this, the PEGI description reads as quoted, while the descriptions for EA Sports FC 25 (and 24) don’t mention the loot boxes, or their direct connections to gambling that have been pointed out on numerous occasions.
LocalThunk later added to their post on Twitter “I’m way more irked at the 3+ for these games with actual gambling mechanics for children than I am about Balatro having an 18+ rating.”
“If these other games were rated properly I’d happily accept the weirdo 18+. The red logo looks kinda dope.”
PEGI has yet to respond to LocalThunk’s statement, or provide more context around what exactly about Balatro teaches players how to play poker and how to gamble, or what about Balatro’s gameplay teaches skills that could be then transferred to poker, beyond the simple knowledge of being able to call out which cards put together form a straight, and which ones would be a full house.
A game is given a “Gambling” warning by PEGI if it “contains elements that encourage or teach gambling. These simulations of gambling refer to games of chance that are normally carried out in casinos or gambling halls,” and after a classification change in 2020, any game that meets this criteria is given an automatic 18+ rating.
Just to hammer it home once more as to how not-like gambling Balatro is, but its creator couldn’t be more against his creation being morphed and played to include actual gambling, and even cemented it in his will that Balatro is not to be turned into a game with gambling.
We’ve reached out to PEGI for a comment on this story but did not hear back in time ahead of publication. We’ll update this story should we hear anything.
Source – [LocalThunk on Twitter, PC Gamer]