The Slovak Gambling Regulatory Authority (ÚRHH) has signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Department of Digital Games at the Faculty of Mass Media Communication of the University of St Cyril and Methodius in Trnava (FMK UCM), creating a joint research programme on loot boxes, skin betting and randomised rewards in video games.
The programme was announced on 24 August 2026 under the name Safer Digital Future. It gives the regulator a standing academic partner on the point where game design and gambling mechanics meet, and it covers two age groups: Generation Z, defined by the partners as 14 to 29 year olds, and Generation Alpha, aged 1 to 13.
What the programme covers
The research centres on monetisation inside video games rather than on licensed gambling products. Loot boxes, skin betting and other randomised reward systems sit outside the Slovak licensing regime, which means players under 18 can reach them without any of the age verification, deposit controls or advertising restrictions that apply to a licensed operator.
ÚRHH says the partnership will produce evidence-led prevention work, youth-focused educational activity and a route for research to reach the regulator directly rather than through consultation rounds.
For Gen Z and Alpha, technology is not just a tool but the environment where they form identity, relationships and their view of the world.
That was Libuša Baranová, Director General of ÚRHH, setting out the case for treating digital games as a regulatory question rather than a cultural one.
Trnava was already inside the file
The memorandum formalises work that started earlier this year. In March 2026 the university was asked to develop an educational framework on digital gambling risks, and the August agreement turns that one-off commission into a continuing relationship covering game design psychology, monetisation models and player behaviour.
Juliána Mináriková, Acting Dean of FMK UCM, said the department’s subject matter puts it in the middle of the question the regulator is asking.
Digital games are one of the most powerful environments shaping young people’s behaviour.
The practical output is a body of Slovak-specific data. Most of the published research on loot boxes and skin betting comes from the UK, Australia and the Nordics, and a regulator writing rules for a market of 5.4 million people has little national evidence to cite when it does.
Reform is still stuck in parliament
The research programme arrives while Slovakia’s gambling law is unresolved. Parliament approved amendments to the Gambling Act of 2019 in October 2025, with 71 of the 78 MPs present voting in favour after Slovak National Party members abstained and opposition MPs stayed out of the vote. The bill came from the Tourism and Sport Ministry under Rudolf Huliak and would have adjusted gambling levies and allowed the state lottery operator Tipos to take over valid casino licences.
President Peter Pellegrini vetoed it on 6 November 2025. His objection was that the bill would let casinos operate in municipalities that had rejected them through local referendums or binding regulations, which he called unacceptable interference in the constitutional right to territorial self-government. He has since said he would support a broader reform that puts consumer protection first.
Parliament has to take the bill back. Until it does, the regulator’s scope for statutory change is limited, which makes research, education and memoranda the tools available to it. Regulatory authority elsewhere in the region has been politically exposed this year, including in Romania, where the prime minister dismissed the president of the ONJN in August.
What operators should watch
Nothing in the memorandum changes a licence condition. The exposure is second order: if the research concludes that loot boxes and skin betting function as gambling for Slovak minors, that finding lands in the middle of a reform debate that parliament has to reopen anyway, and it lands with the regulator’s name on it.
The direction of travel in other markets is towards statutory limits rather than voluntary codes, including in Brazil, where a bill would cap betting deposits at R$80 a month. Neither ÚRHH nor the university has set a timeline for the first outputs, and no publication schedule was attached to the announcement.
Source: Slovak Gambling Regulatory Authority (ÚRHH)
