Hearthpwn

Please do not resurrect old and dead threads in this way.

Locked.

Quote from Kamamura >>

Things have finally set into motion, and currently, a bill with bi-partisan support is proposed to strictly regulate what is now viewed as predatory business practices aimed at minors who are less capable to resist exploiting psychological impulses related to gambling - namely lootboxes. There are scientific studies that lootboxes are really capable of tricking people (and ESPECIALLY minors) into spending unreasonable amounts of money, that the number of adolescent gamblers quadrupled in the UK due to similar schemes used by mobile games, and thus, as a form of gambling, it should be both heavily taxed and regulated, i.e. inaccessible to minors. 

According to Beligan law, lootboxes are already illegal predatory business practice. 

All in all, it seems that the children's card game will soon become and adult only card game. 

What you've said there is true and correct, but it does, however, miss a vital point when comparing to a game like Hearthstone.
In addition to what I said in  my previous post, there is a reason Lootboxes are under scrutiny and that is because of the real-world monetary value that has been put on the items by the community itself. 
For example, when you pay £1.50 for a loot box key and get a weapon skin for CS:GO (etc). You then go on to sell that on the Marketplace and find that because of the supply and demand for tat weapon, it's only worth 7 pence now. So you lost a chunk of money on the Gamble. This is considered real gamblin gin the eyes of the law, because you are left in a worse position financially (albeit through value of items you own), when there was the chance of getting a weapon that was worth hundreds of pounds like a flashy knife, etc.
Hearthstone doesn't have this problem (and likely never will) because of the fact that it cleverly has never allowed trading of cards, meaning that they will never reduce in real-world monetary value.
For that reason, there's not likely to ever be a concern that it will be put into the same position as lootbox games that provide actual tradable commodities. This is also why Hearthstone (contrary to what a previous poster scoffed about) does in fact follow the same pattern as buying physical packs of cards in a shop. Although HS is actually in a better position, because paper cards ARE tradable.

Quote from 5HARK5 >>

It's basically a casino game. I love it, but so much gambling is involved both in pack purchasing and in the gameplay. Is it worth having an age rating, maybe 5+ atleast? ThOuGhts? 

I appreciate the thought on this, but having worked on this very issue with a large MMORPG game, the definition of actual gambling has nuances that this game manages to skirt around. 
For it to be considered actual gambling for the sake of legality, there has to be certain guidelines that are met / adhered to. Otherwise you could easily say that any game with a randomised element in it could be considered a form of gambling. So it revolves around the use of real money and how that ties into the game.
In terms of Hearthstone, there is no actual gamble for your money. You can purchase card packs for the guarantee of at least 4 common cards and 1 rare card. Anything above that is considered a free upgrade (in terms of gambling) - which is something entirely different. 
Gambling (in the serious sense) requires there to be the possible outcome of you finding yourself in a lesser position than you were when you started. So either losing your money, or ending up with something that is valued at less than the money you put in.
For example, paying £50 for a Mystery Box with the chance of there being a Playstation 4 or a Can of Coke inside.
In Hearthstone, the 5 bottom line cards that are pulled from a pack are valued at the price of the pack, so the worst outcome you can recieve is the exact value for money you put in. 

So TL;DR - no, Hearthstone can't be considered actual gambling in the true sense of the word (though there are misinterpretations of the word that Hearthstone could fall under). Otherwise there would have been a legal issue surrounding this a long time ago.