Who really pays? How children spend money in games

Who spends, and who pays

Ofcom's 2025 survey of 2,205 UK children and their parents is the most detailed recent source. Among 8–17-year-olds who had played games in the previous month, 53% said they had spent money while gaming, a definition that includes console stores and subscriptions as well as purchases inside a game. Boys spent more often than girls at every age (61% against 45% overall); the peak was boys aged 13 to 15, two-thirds of whom had spent something. Ofcom, quantitative report

The more useful question is how the money moved. Asked how they paid for their most recent purchase, and allowed more than one answer, 39% of child purchasers said a parent's card with the details typed in, by the parent or by the child, and 19% said a parent's card already saved on the device. Their own debit or prepaid card came next: 24% typed in their own details and 13% had their own card saved. One in five used a gift card or voucher. Because children could tick several routes, the shares cannot be added up; what can be said is that 62% of purchasers had someone else buy for them, and that a parent's card is the single most common route by a wide margin. Parents, asked how their child pays for online purchases generally, agree: 44% named their own or their partner's card, and 30% the child's own debit card. Ofcom, questions G6 and P2

Did the person paying know? Among children whose purchases were paid for by someone else, 80% said that person knew about all of them, 17% said they knew about some, and 2% said they did not know at all. That is a measure of awareness, not permission: the question asked whether the payer knew, and a parent who knows afterwards has not necessarily agreed beforehand. Ofcom, question G6b A separate school survey in Great Britain adds a sharper detail: among 11–17-year-olds who had paid for in-game items, 36% had at some point used money from someone else's bank account. Gambling Commission, 2024

Australia's government survey asks the permission question directly, of parents. In 2025, 20% of children aged 0–17 had made a purchase in a game in the past year, unchanged from 2024. Among those children's parents, 64% said the purchases were authorised, 8% said the child had standing permission, 13% said the child used their own money, and 15% said at least some purchases were unauthorised (17% a year earlier, though a new answer option makes the comparison indicative only). Authorised purchases were least common for the under-8s, at 46%, and own-money purchases were most common among 16–17-year-olds. Television & Media Survey 2025, pp. 150–152

What they buy

The most common purchase is not an item at all but a currency. Among UK children who bought something while gaming, 40% had bought in-game money, 27% a subscription, 26% skins or outfits, 22% a new character, 18% a battle pass and 13% loot boxes or packs. Australian parents report the same order: in-game currency for 63% of purchasing children, cosmetic items 36%, battle or raid passes 27%, unlockable content 24% and loot boxes 17%. Ofcom Australia

Currency first matters because the currency is where the price gets blurry. Ofcom's qualitative work with 105 children found that younger players could confidently say what an item cost in gems or coins but struggled to say what that was in pounds, and that bundle sizes "rarely aligned with the purchase of a single item". Ofcom, persuasive design, p. 21 A real example, with prices as shown in Roblox's European store on 21 October 2026: an item priced at 250 Robux cannot be bought with the €3.49 bundle of 240, so a child starting from zero buys the €5.99 bundle of 400 and is left holding 150 Robux that only another purchase can top up. At the bundle's own rate the item is worth about €3.74; the cash that left the account was €5.99. Roblox store

How much, and how unevenly

Most children who spend do not spend much. In the UK survey, roughly a third of purchasers estimated they had spent between £1 and £10 in the previous month, roughly a third between £11 and £25, and 35% £26 or more. These are children's own estimates, not bank statements. Ofcom, question G5 In Germany, about half of 12–19-year-olds who play games spend nothing on them in a typical month and a fifth spend €1–10; the average works out at around €7 a month, €9.40 for boys and €4 for girls. JIM-Studie 2025 Across France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, a survey of parents by Ipsos for the industry body Video Games Europe found that 76% of parents of child gamers say their child spends nothing at all, and of those whose child does spend, 73% put it at €1–20 a month. Video Games Europe / Ipsos, 2024

The average hides the shape. A study of 2,308 Austrian pupils aged 10–19, published in 2026 with data gathered by 2024, found that 35% had bought something in a game in the past year and that their spending averaged €170 for the year. But the highest-spending tenth of those purchasers, 85 pupils who had spent between €400 and €12,000, accounted for 61% of all the money (an earlier, less cleaned cut of the same data put it at 73%). The study's measure of inequality, a Gini coefficient of 0.85, is far above that of any national income distribution. Meschik and colleagues, 2026 University of Graz, 2024

For a parent, this is the most practical finding in the research. The useful question is not whether your child's spending matches an average, but which group they are in: the many who spend a few pounds or euros a month on things they understand, or the few for whom spending has become large, frequent and hard to explain.

The same question in other countries

The tiles below sit side by side rather than in order because each survey measures something slightly different. Brazil's national household survey found 21% of internet users aged 11–17 had ever spent real money in online games (17% a year earlier, an indicative change), with a steep social gradient: 41% in socioeconomic classes AB against 19% in classes DE. TIC Kids Online Brasil 2025 In Norway, 63% of 9–18-year-olds who play had ever bought something with real money in a game. Medietilsynet, 2022 In Sweden (fieldwork 2022), about 60% of 9–12-year-old players sometimes buy things in games, falling to just over 40% by 17–18. Ungar & medier 2023 In the United States, 54% of parents say they have bought in-game content for their children, and 93% of those parents say purchases need their approval; the survey is run by the games industry's trade body and measures the rules parents report, not whether every purchase followed them. ESA / YouGov, 2026

One thing is consistent in every survey that reports it: boys spend more than girls. The gap is 61% to 45% in the UK, 57% to 35% in Great Britain's school survey, 31% to 12% in Brazil, 60% to 20% for buying known items in Norway and 36% to 6% for loot boxes, and 59% to 21% in Austria, where three-quarters of all purchasers were boys. Ofcom Gambling Commission TIC Kids Medietilsynet University of Graz Meschik and colleagues

What a purchase means to a child

A parent sees a picture on a screen. A child may see a way to join in. Norwegian researchers who played alongside 19 children aged 10–15 found that avatar clothing carried status and belonging, and that some children felt pressure about what their characters wore. SIFO report OsloMet's account That is why "what do you like about it?" is a better opening than "it's just pixels". Children are also franker about their own spending than parents might expect: among UK purchasers, 72% thought their purchases were good value, but 42% agreed that it is not always clear what they will get for their money, 41% said they often spend more than they should, and 32% often regret a purchase. Ofcom

Türkiye: a lot of play, no spending data, and a new law

Three-quarters of Turkish children aged 6–15 play digital games (83% of boys, 65% of girls), but there is no official or academic Turkish figure for how many buy things inside games, how much they spend or whether parents approve; the statistics office's next children's survey is due in October 2026. TÜİK, 2024 What Türkiye does have, as of this autumn, is a law. Law No. 7578, published on 1 May 2026, adds game platforms to the internet law and requires them to offer parental-control tools that let paid transactions, "satın alma, kiralama ve ücretli üyelik gibi ücrete dayalı işlemler", be made subject to a parent's permission or approval. Platforms may not offer games that have not been age-rated. These provisions take effect on 1 November 2026, although the rating rules themselves had not been published when this article was researched. Law 7578, Articles 21–23 and 27