Five Years In Prison For SL Casino Opertors ?

Only to those who (a) sign up for an SL account (b) purchase or earn said Lindens and (c) transfer those Lindens to US$ (or another US Government recognized form of legal tender)

[sarcasm] I don't recall having to sign up for, or agree to a TOS for the priviledge to pay taxes on US$ earnings. [/sarcasm]

In any event, back to cleaning. Happy debating

Frankly speaking, I don't think the Federal Government gives a rat's ass about gambling on SL. (Though the generation of substanitial income from SL is another story)

But technically it does appear that SL gambling comes under the provisions of the New Internet Gambling Prohibition Act which was tacked on to the Port Security Act by some zealots.

Just bored waiting for the friggin grid to reopen.

i Believe that new law only applies to internet gambling sites in which you use solely US legal tender. While I haven't read the statute (I don't to go to sleep ), I do believe that is the spirit of the law.

What is US legal tender? Dollar and coins made by the U.S. Mint.

Since gambling is done solely in $L it doesn't apply.

Considering the simulator resources casinos tend to take, I say five years is not enough.

Nope: The new act says "anything of value" not "legal Tender' or "currency"

Yes Jihn:

I was aware of that thread , and in fact had posted on it , when I started this one. When I posted there I did not have a copy of the new Act avaiable to me. When it did become available, after reading it I concluded, IMHO, that technically it could be applied to SL gambling. I believed that this was a new and very significant element tworthy of attention and its own thread.

The new Act makes it very clear that the prohibitions of the Act are not limited to bets or wagering done in "legal tender" or currency."


" (6) The term `bets or wagers'--

`(A) means the staking or risking by any person OF SOMETHING OF VALUE upon the outcome of a contest of others, a sporting event, or a game predominantly subject to chance, upon an agreement or understanding that the person or another person will receive something of value in the event of a certain outcome;"

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c109:4:./temp/~c109GjD5UN:e1962:

My Emphasis

my thread was simply a question if anyone knew. I agree that the government is probably not as interested in casinos on this level, but I do think it could come to that if its pushed far enough. Similarly, I think this will be quite unenforcable for many reasons. Someone mentioned trigo and similar games... the lead me to a thought.. if we make "churches" we can have slingo legally? just made me laugh at myself.

meanwhile, the government is doing everything it can to try and keep money out of the "wrong peoples" hands. in recent times the depth of wrong people has spread to just about anyone who disagrees :~/

I do think that there is a very gray area that could be deemed black or white irregardless of what we as individuals believe. I also think that this is an important issue to be aware of. Since it was coat tailed on the port act, it would be assumable that this is in direct link to terrorism. It would seem that SL is a great money laundering arena, as are many other areas.

Conversely, as long as you never cash out your earnings to currency, there should not be an issue. Just something I was thinking about when I saw that this finally passed.

Has something changed, today? Has new legislation come into force which was previously undiscussed?

It's an interesting topic either way. That every aspect and perspective of it has been discussed already is a rather large assumption to make.

I'd beg to differ, having seen the debate (mostly composed of lots of people saying "I'm not a lawyer but..." over the last few months, and also the definitive LL statement on how they will be responding to the manner.

I just wanted to check whether anything new had happened, that is all, though. I was confused by seeing several threads suddenly appear. If not, fair enough, just one of those odd coincidences I suppose.

What has changed Ordinal is that from Friday (yesterday) the US President signed a law that makes it not legal for a bank or credit card company to process a transaction into or from a Internet gambling site.

But from what I understand sl is not considered to be a gaming site as such however that is only my own view on that albeit gleaned from Second Lifes legal advisor and a link in the knowedge basis.

Dyor of course,

http://secondlife.com/knowledgebase/article.php?id=291


Regards

John

I don't think LL can really claim that $L's are not worth real $US...

They run the Lindex and occasionally they actually SELL $L's!!! How can they say they don't have RL value??

I think LL is treading on very dangerous ground.

What worries me about that Knowledge base entry is that even the Linden is saying they don't know anything for sure, and there is no indication that they are asking about this. If I were running a SL casino I think I would shut down until I knew for sure how this law applies to SL.

Fact is someone could pay RL money for a lot of $L's, gamble a, win a lot more $L's and then cash out in RL money. Sure sounds like internet gambling to me.

Well thats another sticky problem that might need addressing in the future. But since sl is 70% porn related might be a problem even father down the line.

I think what makes the biggest difference is tender you can touch.

Gambling with chips you can touch them. They are tangible.

Gambling online you play with money which you could touch if the same was in your hand.

Gambling in SL, you cannot physically ever get a hold of a real Linden dollar.



I also think, that if they cared about it, they would have stormed the scene in the first place and shut the casino's down for running a business for profit without a license. Technically, all those people who own places, brands, etc. would have been subjected to licensing themselves or bonding themselves, etc. However, because of the way SL is marketed, it isn't held to the normal standard laws. (Technically, I can't walk around in public with my boobs hanging out in RL.)

This is where you are wrong, as soon as the US Dollar Value was put on the Linden Dollar, the game currency became very real.

after I read John's reply and link http://secondlife.com/knowledgebase/article.php?id=291
that answered my question. as I understand it LL will not do anything to restrict such businesses and it is up to the owner/operators themselves to abide by the law of thier country. for the average gambler, does this law prohibit US residents from going to casinos as well?

According to a group chat the casino, Extreme, has shut down.

If this was true, I wonder if it had anything to do with this law?

Kalik:

The law is not directed at individuals who gamble, even though the places that they gamble at might be engaged in running an illegal gambling business or one that is violating the law.

John:

Whether or not SL is a "gambling site" is not relevant to a determination of whether or not an individual casino in SL is an illegal gambling business.

The memo by Guru specifically states that although in his opinion SL is not running a gambling business, that it is up to individual casino owners to determine if they are operating an illegal gambling business. This is hardly a reassuring statemnt for SL casino operators,

I done me some of that there fancy thinking and my conclusion is:

If gambling becomes even more prominent in Second Life then Linden Lab will be told to police their grid or get their bums spanked (fined) every time they fail to do so. It will ultimately be the L$ that makes Linden Lab responsible, in the same way that Paypal has been held responsible.



Thread closed.

Obviously, the thread isn't closed.

The determining factor is, of course, that the Lindens can reasonably state that what you're paying for when you convert dollars to Lindens is play value. You cannot extract any merchandise or real property from SL, since it exists only there. This gives the "play value" argument strong, and probably incontravertable weight. Since Lindens cannot be exchanged for property or merchandise in any real world sense, they do not legally comprise a currency. And that's pretty much it.

As I mentioned in my earlier post in this thread, this is just fear-mongering and alarmism, and should have been (but apparently wasn't) beneath the dignity of the original poster.

Ummm; And what do you call selling Lindens for Dollars?

What LL pronounces respecting the Linden is not determinitive. What is relevant is there exists a strong and active market for the conversion of USD into Lindens and Lindens to USD. The mere fact that LL proclaims that the L has no value is meaningless here.

" Since Lindens cannot be exchanged for property or merchandise in any real world sense, they do not legally comprise a currency. "

Of course Lindens can be exchanged for property or merchandis after they are converted to dollars. And a US Dollar is property isn't it? And in addition, I can strike a deal with someone who wants to buy Lindens for something of value such as a PC if I chose to and there was awilling seller. Because Lindens have a real world value in conversion to dollars they also have value in a bartered exchange.

The medium used to place wagers and bets to trigger the provisions of the new law does not have to be a currency, it only has to be something of value which Lindens undeniably are.

I don't think it would be reasonable and neither would the courts. The L$ clearly has value. Linden Lab knows it has value because they sell it. But what Linden Lab thinks is beside the point. They don't make the law... (Well not in the real world).

In order for it to be a currency, it must be directly endorsed by something of value in the real world. A dollar is based on a certain amount of gold stored at Fort Knox, but a Linden has no such real world basis. Since a Linden has an arbitrary value, and can buy no real world goods directly, it's not technically a currency.

The fact that funds can be withdrawn from the Linden system does not make it any sort of feduciary institution, only a service offering variable refunds on monies paid for play, or remunerations for the provision of unique content within the simulation.

Linden labs is selling a service, not goods, and pays out money to participants in return for services rendered to Linden Labs, and not simply managing accounts the way a financial institution would do. They, therefore and by definition, are not engaged in a gambling operation, and because people who run virtual casinos within SL are providing content services to enhance user's experience and are not in fact dealing with real money, neither are they.

To prove otherwise would establish a legal precedent heretofore unseen in the United States legal system, and an opponent in court would have a very hard time doing this.