A lawsuit filed in Las Vegas has alleged that the online gaming platform Roblox — where tens of millions of children play games daily, according to the company’s annual reports — did not safeguard a 9-year-old girl from receiving sexually explicit photographs from a predator.

The plaintiffs — identified only as Mary and John Doe in the 80-page complaint filed in District Court on Wednesday — have accused the San Mateo, California-based corporation of design defects, fraudulent concealment of defects, misrepresentations about Roblox’s safety, negligence and failure to warn minor users and parents about the risks of using their product.

“Her innocence has been snatched from her forever,” the lawsuit stated. “Tragically, what happened to Mary Doe is far from an isolated event. Indeed, Mary Doe is just one of numerous children whose lives have been devastated as a result of Defendant’s gross negligence and defectively designed app. This action, therefore, is not just a battle to vindicate Mary Doe’s rights — it is a stand against Defendant’s systemic failures to protect society’s most vulnerable from unthinkable harm in pursuit of financial gain over child safety.”

Roblox did not respond to a request for comment.

In response to a lawsuit filed in June that called the platform “a hunting ground for child sex predators,” Roblox spokesperson Chloe Srivastava previously told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that “criminal behavior has no place” on the platform.

Earlier this year, the company settled a lawsuit filed by the Nevada Attorney General’s Office, agreeing to pay $12.5 million and implement child safeguards. The added protections included the requirement to verify the ages of all its Nevada users, bar minors from using encrypted messaging and place restrictions on who they can communicate with, Attorney General Aaron Ford said at the time.

The latest complaint stated that the child first met the predator, who was not named in the complaint, online in 2021, where he “exploited her age and vulnerability to build a false emotional connection with her.”

He then engaged in grooming and sent sexually explicit content to her multiple times, including videos and photos of him performing solo sex acts until 2023, the lawsuit stated. The lawsuit did not say whether the alleged predatory conduct resulted in criminal charges or a conviction.

Before Wednesday’s court filing, Roblox, which allows users to play and create their own games, already faced hundreds of child-exploitation lawsuits spread across several local, state and federal dockets.

The lawsuit has accused the platform of trivializing sexual misconduct by allowing hundreds of user-created games referencing disgraced music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who became infamous for his “freak-off parties” and was sentenced to 50 months in prison last year after being convicted on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

The complaint also noted that there were over 900 user accounts referencing the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and even one game on the platform was titled “Escape to Epstein Island.”

Roblox has also been a regular fixture on the National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s Dirty Dozen List, which criticizes major companies or platforms for their role in facilitating, enabling or profiting from sexual exploitation.

Along with the alleged victim at the heart of the lawsuit, there have been many accusations of child exploitation on the platform.

While Roblox implemented changes to parental controls in 2024 and 2025, attorneys for the plaintiff in the Las Vegas complaint said predators can still access children on the application, and referenced an April 2025 arrest of a California man accused of kidnapping and sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl he met on the platform.

Other more recent arrests include a Florida teenager who was accused of convincing children as young as 8 years old to send sexually explicit pictures to him, and a New York man who was federally charged with enticement and possession of child pornography after connecting with teenage girls on Roblox.

The lawsuit alleged that despite changes made to safety features, they amounted to “little more than window dressing,” and pointed to the disparity in restrictions between Roblox and other platforms.

“Most fundamentally, Roblox still allows adults to contact and message children,” the lawsuit alleges. “Roblox only banned user-to-user messaging for users under the age of 13 outside of games. Predators can still message children on public chats while playing games; indeed, Roblox has left child predators a blueprint for finding children on the application intact since predators have always found children by playing games they know that children will frequent.”

Contact Devan Patel at dpatel@reviewjournal.com.