In April 2012, Jagex redefined the rule about real world trading in RuneScape, saying:"Real-world trading is the runescape gold 2007 term used for activities which occur out of runescape environment that result from the real-world sale or purchase of items, gold pieces or services with the intent of providing or progressing a Jagex in-game character other than by the way that are integrated into runescape." This change explains that real-world trading needs to involve a third party and that any form of monetisation possessed by Jagex is omitted from this rule. But criticism of Squeal of Fortune lasted, until it had been replaced with Treasure Hunter in February 2014.

Additionally, it has been criticised for producing a pay-to-win setting, since most of its own prizes, such as a range of XP lamps (like genie lamps), supply runescape players with large amount of experience they could spend on a skill of their choice. The attention of those disagreements is using Treasure Hunter devalues the scoreboad along with the act of skilling itself.

Runescape player Redhorizon, who talked to Eurogamer in RuneFest 2019, stated:"Treasure Hunter was bad enough, but then you have the promotions offering double experience." In the time of writing, 49 Treasure Hunter promotions have conducted during 2019. The Bubbling Lamps advertising, as an example, has run first, in 2019 in February and then in rewarding runescape players with a choice of XP lamps. These lamps could be redeemed for either direct or bonus encounter, allowing runescape gamers to quickly obtain experience in abilities that typically take a good deal of time to train, like Summoning and Agility.

Bonds, which were introduced in 2013, could be where can i buy runescape gold exchanged between runescape players redeemed for a variety of services. Some runescape players see Bonds as a form of real world trading, since runescape players must first purchase them using real-world money.