New York Times Games, Brawl Stars and Block Blast have become staple games among teenagers. However, there is a new game rising the charts: Balatro. A game where students can gamble fake money has piqued the interest of many people. It also raises some concerns about the impact of gambling simulations.
Developed by LocalThunk, Balatro is a poker-themed rogue-like deck-building game. Rogue-like is a role-playing game where the levels are randomly generated, and death means game over.
“Each time you play the game, you get new stuff, new things to make it interesting,” senior Jonathan Fuchs said. “The whole premise of the game is that it’s Poker. You get a certain amount of poker chips, which are the currency. In the game, you have to meet a threshold to get to the next level.”
Players can purchase the game for $14.99 on Steam’s digital distribution service and continue to play it for free. Many students play the game during lunch periods or even classes.
“I’ve played for 50 hours, mostly at school [and home]. The main interest was the friends. For some reason, at the beginning of this year, a big wave of people got the game that I know, a bunch of good friends,” Fuchs said.
Senior Anna Beutelmann agrees that Balatro is a popular game, especially in its incorporation of poker and appeal to modern generations.
“Our generation is more immersed in technology, and gaming is pretty big, from mobile to online competitive games. Balatro takes a unique spin on an old game. Remakes tend to get a lot of attention, and this spin on poker seemed good,” Beutelmann said.
Like many games, Balatro brings people together, including Fuchs and his friends.
“It’s a single-player game, so you can’t technically play with others, but I watch people play it. I watch my friends play it, and my friends watch me play it. So I’d say that makes it [collaborative],” Fuchs said.
Despite Balatro’s positive effects, some individuals express concerns about its impact on student productivity, particularly when played during class. However, not everyone shares this concern, as Fuchs explains his perspective.
“I don’t think it’s impacted my schedule too much. I haven’t played it as much recently, because I’ve had so much work. But I can see how this would hinder the schoolwork. If you’re getting distracted by this game, you want to play it more and more,” Fuchs said.
Missouri gambling laws currently only allow for riverboat casinos, horse racing, lottery games and daily fantasy sports. Online gambling remains illegal in the state. However, given the rising popularity of online casinos, there is a promising possibility of future legalization. Despite potential legal changes, concerns remain about the consequences of real and fake gambling.
“I don’t think it’s too concerning that kids can legally gamble because, in this case, it’s not super [risky]. In real life, you’re giving up your money. This is more just for fun, and if you lose, you might be a little frustrated, but you might realize that this has repercussions so that you won’t do it in real life with real money,” he said.
Beutelmann agrees, arguing that Balatro does not focus primarily on gambling.
“From what I’ve seen, you focus more on buying different jokers to give you different power-ups to try and make a hand worth the most points. The ‘money’ only comes in when buying jokers.”
Beutelmann also suggests the developers add a warning label to ease parental concerns.
“The developers could add a warning label on the game if people are concerned about it, but I don’t think they should sacrifice the current gameplay. That is what is so amazing about the game, and changing it too drastically will suck the fun out of it.”
