New roguelike sensation Balatro has rating changed from 3+ to 18+ over gambling fears

Balatro is the deck-building roguelike that is sweeping through gaming right now. It seems to have come out of nowhere and has immediately grabbed people with its addictive gameplay, style, and more. We gave it a 9 out of 10 in our review, and other critics have responded similarly.

However, recently the game has been pulled from some storefronts and had its age rating changed from 3+ to 18+ as it apparently promotes gambling. Balatro is a game based on Poker, where you have to use your cards alongside power-ups to make as much money as possible in order to move onto the next series of challenges. It does sound a lot like gambling, but as Playstack Games said in a statement, the game itself doesn't contain gambling mechanics.

There are plenty of random elements in Balatro, such as the cards you draw, but this doesn't exactly equate to gambling. If this is the industry that fought hard to get loot boxes cleared of gambling accusations, we can't see why Balatro is suddenly getting attacked.