Can you game on a refurbished laptop, and are refurbished gaming laptops any good?

You can game on a refurbished laptop, but the realistic experience depends entirely on which games you want to play. Most refurbished business laptops (ThinkPads, Latitudes, EliteBooks) have integrated graphics and are suitable only for casual titles: chess, card games, older indie games and light 2D titles run fine. For mainstream gaming (GTA V, Valorant, FIFA) at playable settings, you need a refurbished laptop with a discrete GPU, typically an Nvidia GTX 1650 or better. Dedicated refurbished gaming laptops (from lines like Lenovo Legion, HP Omen or Asus ROG) do exist in the refurbished market and can deliver strong performance at 30 to 40% below new prices. Battery life on gaming machines is always short, so plan to use them plugged in. Check that the GPU is listed and verified in the product specs before buying.