[Gem Store Bug] Not able to reddeem the free Knife Tail Gang Hunting Bond

[belgian citizen here]

Hello,

I have bought both PoF and HoT but I am not able to pick my gift : the 'free Knife Tail Gang Hunting Bond' from the Gem Store because, 'I cannot buy this item in my country'.
According to the official news I should be able too !

Players who have upgraded their account with Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ or Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire™, or who purchased the original Guild Wars 2 game prior to Play-for-Free, can pick up a free Knife Tail Gang Hunting Bond in the Gem Store (available until 3 September)!

There is no mention of any country restriction. I know that my country has specific regulation about gambling and that Anet have chosen to prevent us from buying this kind of 'loot box' in return, I can live with it. But I don't see any valid reason to also deny to us a free gift redeem possibility ! This look unfair to me and I hope that this is a bug resulting of two conflicting rules being applied in the wrong order.

It's because the Hunting Bond is RNG - when you get the bond and acquire a box of stolen Black Lion goods, you don't get to choose what you want from that box. It's random, hence it falls under what some consider to be lootboxes...and thus is banned in Belgium.

Unfortunately if it's an RNG item and you're in Belgium, Anet doesn't have any say in whether you get it or not. It would be nice if they gave you guys some other freebie though, something guaranteed but small like a voucher for a weapon skin or something. I'm fairly certain a voucher would be allowed, since you get to choose what you want.

Both of you missed an important point here. As far as I know, container with random output are considered as 'loot box' ( thus a form of Gambling) only under the explicit condition that you buy them (directly or indirectly) with real money. As such, preventing us to buy them trough the store is valid. However, nothing in our legislation prevent Anet to give it for free to us. My complain only concern the free one, which by definition doesn't involve any money counterpart. For instance, that's probably why the unidentified gear bags or the free lvl 10 key (for black lion chest) that we receive inside of the game are legal. Since nearly all games involve RNG of some sort, following yours (too) simple definition, gaming would be banned in Belgium and its far from being the case. The issue is raising because the redeem system is include in the buying system by design, with the implicit false assumption that you cannot receive an item if you cannot buy a similar one.