Balatro is certainly habit-forming, but there’s nothing to be won or lost, other than time, by playing it. While the game has you using standard playing cards and poker hands as part of its base mechanics, it does not have in-app purchases, loot boxes, or any kind of online play or enticement to gambling, beyond the basics of risk and reward.
Yet many YouTube creators have had their Balatro videos set to the traffic-dropping “Age-restricted” status, allegedly due to “depictions or promotions of casino websites or apps,” with little recourse for appeal.
The Balatro University channel detailed YouTube’s recent concerns about “online gambling” in a video posted last weekend. Under policies that took effect March 19, YouTube no longer allows any reference to gambling sites or applications “not certified by Google.” Additionally, content with “online gambling content”—”excluding online sports betting and depictions of in-person gambling”—cannot be seen by anyone signed out of YouTube or registered as under 18 years old.
Balatro University’s primer on how more than 100 of his videos about Balatro suddenly became age-restricted.
“The problem is,” Balatro University’s host notes, “Balatro doesn’t have any gambling.” Balatro University reported YouTube placing age restrictions on 119 of his 606 videos, some of them having been up for more than a year. After receiving often confusingly worded notices from YouTube, the channel host filed 30 appeals, 24 of which were rejected. Some of the last messaging from YouTube to Balatro University, from likely outdated and improperly cross-linked guidance, implied that his videos were restricted because they show “harmful or dangerous activities that risk serious physical harm.”
Credit:
Playstack
Balatro, while based on poker hands, involving chips and evoking some aspects of video poker or casinos, only has you winning money that buys you cards and upgrades in the game.
Credit:
Playstack
Developer LocalThunk took to social network Bluesky with some exasperation. “Good thing we are protecting children from knowing what a 4 of a kind is and letting them watch CS case opening videos instead,” he wrote, referencing the popularity of videos showing Counter-Strike “cases” with weapon skins being opened.
Apparently Balatro videos are being rated 18+ on YouTube now for gambling
Good thing we are protecting children from knowing what a 4 of a kind is and letting them watch CS case opening videos instead
— localthunk (@localthunk.bsky.social) April 5, 2025 at 4:39 PM
