[STEAM] Balatro Dev Refuses to Make It a Gambling Game, Even After His Death

[Steam 0]

The creator of popular deck-building poker inspired game

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has taken legal steps to ensure his creation can never be used to promote actual gambling, even after his ******.

Balatro is a roguelike which asks players to earn chips to beat "blinds" and but despite being steeped in gambling lexicon there are no real world gambling elements in the game, or even microtransactions for that matter.

Creator LocalThunk has now said on X/

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that he has taken action to ensure Balatro can never be used to promote actual gambling by solidifying it in his will.

From the outside this might make 0 sense but I hate the thought of Balatro becoming a true gambling game so much that when I recently created my will I stipulated that the Balatro IP may never be sold or licensed to any gambling company/Casino

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— localthunk (@LocalThunk)

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“From the outside this might make zero sense but I hate the thought of Balatro becoming a true gambling game so much that when I recently created my will I stipulated that the Balatro IP may never be sold or licensed to any gambling company or casino,” wrote LocalThunk.

The comment came in response to a user who joked Balatro was being used to introduce younger generations to gambling, and this isn't the first time LocalThunk or publisher Playstack have had to refute such claims.

Balatro was temporarily removed from ***** on a number of digital storefronts including the Nintendo Switch store shortly after its February 20, 2024 launch, when concerns surrounding gambling themes led a rating board to increase the game’s age rating from 3+ to 18+.

“I do not condone gambling (staking something personally valuable on an uncertain event) nor do I believe that Balatro contains gambling,” wrote LocalThunk in a

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responding to the rating board decision. “I did add risk/reward mechanics and random number generation to Balatro, but these are core mechanics to the genre at large.”

In

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, we described Balatro as “the sort of fun that threatens to derail whole weekend plans as you stay awake far too late staring into the eyes of a jester tempting you in for just one more run."

Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on

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