LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Do you really know who your child is talking to online?
A Las Vegas family says a popular game turned into a direct line for a predator and now, they're taking Roblox to court.
Roblox is an online gaming platform and virtual universe where you can play games created by others or build and share your own. It's wildly popular with kids and has over 132 million daily active users. For years, Roblox has marketed the platform as being safe. However, over 145 lawsuits have been filed in the U.S., including a new one right here in Nevada.
Playing online games with friends should be just that — play. But for one 11-year-old, the platform was a pathway to a predator. Her family says he found her through the Roblox game "Chained Together."
"Unfortunately, there was a predator on there who had pretended to be a minor but it was an older male and he did what predators do. He was messaging with her on Roblox, and then he got her cell phone number, and then he started to text her," Las Vegas attorney Christian Morris, who is representing the family in the newly-filed lawsuit, explained. "Then, he was sending provocative and inappropriate naked photos of his genitals and things like that and asking for her to do it in response."
The lawsuit claims Roblox is not doing enough to keep children safe.
Read the full lawsuit
"Nothing like this is anything they would ever have dreamed of occurring," Morris said when we asked how the parents are feeling. "Roblox holds itself out as a fun place for kids to have fun and that's exactly what they thought it was. Never in their wildest dreams would they have imagined that by playing a game — Chained Together — that it would end up with these sexually explicit texts destroying the self-image of their daughter, the shame and guilt that she lives with."
The victim's older sibling first sounded the alarm after overhearing her speaking with a grown man over the phone. After finding evidence on her phone, the sibling alerted their parents.
Investigators digging into the case for Morris' law firm say it's part of a bigger problem. They documented:
- More than 600 games related to sex trafficking cases involving Sean Combs
- Over 900 accounts related to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein
- Groups with thousands of members trading child porn and soliciting minors for sex that are accessible by simply typing the word "adult"
"There are a lot of examples in here that are stomach-churning, quite frankly, shocking the conscience of myself as a mother and a journalist," I said. "Was there anything that stood out to you in your client's case that really made you want to fight for them?"
"What stood out is how easy it was," Morris said. "That's shocking to me, that this was an individual, a male who held himself out to be a minor, who knew exactly what to do."
Morris says this is the second lawsuit in Nevada but expects many more. Nationwide, hundreds of cases have been filed, including dozens by state attorneys general.
"These platforms and their technology are not going anywhere," Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said during an April press conference. "But that does not mean that we don't take the necessary steps to protect our children."
WATCH FULL PRESSER: State of Nevada reaches settlement with Roblox
Ford announced a settlement with Roblox that includes enhanced parental controls and an age verification process using a government ID to help restrict content that is inappropriate. The company also promised to monitor behavior and remove incorrectly aged users.
"Along with age checking, we've now banned communication so we no longer allow adults to communicate with users under 16," Roblox CEO David Baszucki said during the company's April earnings call. But during that earnings call, he also said only about 26% of daily active users in the United States over 18 years old had completed age verification since the feature was rolled out in January.
"While we want steps to be taken, they are not enough," Morris said. "There is more technology out there. There are more safety steps that they need to take and the only way to do that is to expose how this has been allowed to happen."
We reached out to Roblox regarding this lawsuit. A spokesperson sent us the following statement:
“Criminal behavior has no place on Roblox. Roblox has built a multilayered safety system that includes pioneering safeguards to help protect our users. We do not allow the exchange of images or videos in chat and we deploy a combination of advanced AI-powered detection, human moderation and rigorous filters designed to prevent the exchange of personal information.
Since January, Roblox has required all users to go through age checks in order to chat on our platform, with the system designed to limit chat to people of similar ages and those they already know. This month, we will also launch new age-based accounts that automatically place our youngest users in a partitioned environment, further aligning content access and parental controls with a user’s age.
While no system is perfect, we continue to evolve and strengthen our protections every day.”
Roblox is facing even more legal heat. This time, from its own shareholders.
Just this week, a federal securities lawsuit in California claims company leaders misled investors about the financial impact of age verification.
"On Feb. 5, 2026, Defendants provided concrete guidance of 22-26% bookings growth for Fiscal 2026 which allegedly factored in any anticipated headwinds from earlier testing runs of the age verification rollout," the lawsuit reads in part. "Defendants provided these overwhelmingly positive statements to investors while, at the same time, disseminating materially false and misleading statements and/or concealing material adverse facts concerning the true state of Roblox's organic growth potential."
The lawsuit states that during Roblox's April earnings call, management slashed bookings growth guidance down to 8-12% and a corresponding decline to margin expectations. That affected Roblox's stock prices, which dropped 18.33% on the day of the earnings call.
You can read the full lawsuit below.
So what resources are available for parents?
You can learn more about the age verification process on the Roblox website.
Based on the demonstration video, the platform estimates a user's age based on how they appear on their phone's camera. The company's website states this technology is through a vendor called Persona, which Roblox officials state uses artificial intelligence models, has been tested, and has been certified by third-party laboratories.
"The age estimation models used achieved a Mean Absolute Error of 1.4 years for users younger than 18, based on testing by the Age Check Certification Scheme in the U.K.," the website reads in part. "It's equally important to be prepared for cases that may need correcting — and for any backup methods to be tried and tested."
If parents don't want to use the age estimation tool through the Roblox platform, you can also use a government-issued photo ID such as a driver's license, passport, or residency card. However, you will still need to use a camera so Roblox can verify the user is the same person on that ID. If you don't have a camera, company representatives say you can use a QR code to seamlessly transfer the Age Estimation process to a mobile device with camera access.
Roblox officials also state they have customer support systems and appeal processes for users to report inaccuracies.
Roblox has also announced they are rolling out two new age-based accounts this month. Roblox Kids will be for users between five to eight years old while Roblox Select is for users nine to 15 years old.
All of that being said, the company website states age checks are entirely optional and only necessary if users want to chat with other users and share social media links.
You can report Roblox rule violations to the company directly by clicking here.
For parents that have dealt with issues like sexual exploitation or grooming, the matter can be escalated to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. You can submit tips to their CyberTipline.