Gambling ban = end of Second Life? This article thinks so.

http://www.jackpot.co.uk/online-casino-news/second-life-gambling-ban-280108.html

After reading this article I was thinking about a few things. The article points to the gambling ban as a major (if not primary) reason for the downturn in the Second Life economy. I suppose there could be truth in this, as I run into many people in Second Life who simply refuse to use their credit card in world, and maybe these people would be more likely to spend Lindens that they won from gambling. Could be a great thing.

Is gambling legal in most other parts of the world? I am under the impression that there are more places in the world that allow gambling, then there is that do not allow gambling.

If this is true, could the new Age Verification software be used one day to limit access to parcels based on your real world location? If possible, how would you guys feel about gambling coming back to SL?

My thoughts on gambling coming back into SL?

Don't need it, don't want it, won't use it.

A pity people can't think of better things to do with the potential of SL, to be honest, especially considering its even more rigged than rl gambling with no regulatory oversight.

Broccoli

/me thinks www.jackpot.co.uk might be biased...


After just shooting all the unregulated banks, I don't think LL will _ever_ let unregulated casinos back onto the grid, even if they could.

I have personally never gambled in SL, or in RL. It's just not my thing, but I may not be the majority. Second Life wants to attract more people then just me, and the people who don't enjoy gambling. I'm just wondering if others think the Gambling ban has been as damaging to the SL economy as the article implies, and if so, could it be brought back and "regulated" in the same way that underage access will be "regulated".

The actual key article, referred to by the above, is an old article called "Second Life Deathwatch" http://randolfe.typepad.com/randolfe/2007/07/second-life----.html

It's unlikely that the Lindens could bring gambling back - as I understand it, because SL's servers are US-based, they can't host gambling games even if only non-US people can use them.

As I've posted before, the main value of gambling was that it lowered the correspondence of L$ to US$ for buyers. In micropayments systems this is classically a _good_ thing - that's why the pegged rate for the L$ exchange is L$266 instead of L$250, for example. With gambling as well, if you buy L$1000, you might just get your L$1000, but if you gamble you might end up with L$3000, or nothing.

It's got nothing to do with whether online gambling itself is legal in any particular jurisdiction, it's that US financial services can't be used for online gambling. Even if some gambling-enabled competitor set up shop in Macau, they couldn't get very big before PayPal, WaMu, Citigroup, BoA, etc., were forced to just cut them off at the knees. If they were *just* a gambling world, they'd have to take the risk. Or if they really didn't need customers paying through US financial services. Not LL's business plan, at all.

I'm an avid RL casino patron, but I found SL gambling to be extremely boring. Coupled with the fact that I didn't know if the operator was on the level or no and wasn't running a rigged game. I'm sure a lot weren't but you couldn't tell for sure.

Gambling is gone, and it's not a death sentence to LL either.

These "experts" in these articles are about as intelligent as..well...let's just say they're not.

The only thing I agreed with is that LL is a poorly run company. That's about the only hurtle LL needs to get over. With proper management, and direction, they ahve a growth potential that none of these "experts" care to comment on.

Basing the profit on big buisness and advertising is not going to work. There's nothing in SL for them short of a few crumbs of opertunities. LL would be better off looking for the multitudes of common uses. Building up a huge flow of profit with micro sales. Much the same way that Wal-Mart functions even today.

As for the downslide in the SL economy....I don't suppose the downslide in the RL Stock Exchange would have anything to do with that (that's sarcasm btw). This is election year in the US (where LL is based as well), so a lot of US citizens are tight on their budgets. From what I gather talking to friends inworld from other countries, there's not a big boom in any economy any where.

Every buisness is feeling the crunch, not just SL. Many retail stores reported FAR lower sales over the holidays than was even projected. SL may have it's own mico-economy, but as the L$'s worth is backed by RL monies, the SL economy follows the dips and rises of the RL economies. Concidering how many RL economies interact with SL, the complexity is staggering.

~Jessy

I agree with Meade that your source might be a bit biased. I might be as well. I'll admit that I gamble in RL and on the internet, although my internet gambling is limited to poker and the occasional $5 - $10 sports bet. $10 isn't going to kill me and we're talking maybe 5-6 times per year. I have a boat because of internet poker (got my dough out of Netteller before the door slammed - yay me!), and I played every major site prior to the UIGEA and now every site that allows US players (except UB - blech.)

That said, as an advocate for the legalization of online gambling, I hate gambling on SL and do not want to see it return. It hurts my agenda by leaving the door wide open for people to rig the games. LL has no hope of regulating it, and the operators are unregistered, unregulated, and have no accountability whatsoever. There are no checks in place at all. SL gambling was a time-bomb waiting to happen. I know there were good operators, so don't flame me, but come on - there's no way to compare the coding and RNG for, say, Pokerstars or Full Tilt to the coding for SL poker tables. It's laughable.

If I want to gamble on the internet, there are plenty of sites with good reputations that concentrate 100% of their energy on their product and nothing else. There is no way I would gamble on SL, and no way I could support it.

Long term, yes, when they have both a decent verification system and a regulated gambling authority buying an island. Some months ago Philip Linden commented along the lines of not wanting blanket bans on things in SL based on the lowest common denominator and suggested that laws based on your locality could be used.

So yes, if the system was secure, the gambling authority legitimate and the ability to keep out avatars from countries where gambling is banned, then gambling could be back in SL.

Personally, as someone who likes a gamble, the whole unregulated gambling here didn't appeal to me.

There are already 3D virtual poker worlds available:

The SL economy has withstood several shocks in the past year and seems very resilient. The price of the linden remains stable. The amount traded on the lindex has returned to normal. Inworld transactions, while unreliable as a indicator, is on the rise.

I see the absence of gambling and ponzi banks a good thing for the strengthening of the SL economy long term.

I'd go beyond saying the source is biased. It's worthless. The article spouts out questionable statistics without even tying them to the Linden Lab's adoption of its wagering policy. The ratio of inactive to active accounts, while speculative, is nothing new and was nothing new prior to the ban on casino games.

I never really cared for casino games where you play against the house since the odds always favor the house (something a lot of players fail to grasp as they accuse games of being "rigged" because, gee, big surprise, more often than not they lose). I would like to see poker come back which might happen if lobbying groups manage to get an exemption for poker under the UIGEA. I play on other poker sites but they do not have the interactive environment that Second Life platform allows.

US players are banned from PKR and to my knowledge there are NO other environments for online poker like PKR that are open to US players.

Actually, to further your point - the SL economy has withstood multiple shocks *every year*, for as long as I've been here.

I remember when Traffic Incentives & Event subsidies were taken away - similar cries that Events were the cornerstone of SL activity, and that they'd all dry up - abounded. When Telehubs were removed, many landowners cried that it would destroy the land market. (I was one of them )

In fact, from my perspective - the $Linden dollar is more stable today than it was 3 years ago - before they thought to put controls in place, and actively manage the sinks & sources.

In 2004/2005, it wasn't unheard of for the Linden to wildly fluctuate between $250 - $325. Believe it or not, what we have today is a big improvement over yesteryear.

I never gambled in SL and I don't know anyone that's gambled in SL.

I've never been to a casino in SL and I noticed zero difference when they all closed.

SL has so many different groups and communities saying its the end of SL when only small section, the casino owners and the gamblers, has gone reminds me of chicken little.

Gambling and the people that run gaming businesses as such are a blight on SL. Take offence if you will, we're all entitled to our opinions. I couldn't be happier that gambling has been ruled against TOS, but it hasn't stopped new gaming houses opening up, or people advertising for offworld gambling websites. I've had my share of run ins with casino owners who would do anything to promote their business and usually at the cost of the other tenants of a sim. Campers, poorly scripted objects, god awful annoying advertising, and yeah, try doing a search for the simplest things and you'll end up with a faceful of gambling or sex ads. Never mind that you can uncheck or check the mature content...you think they're being honest when they advertise??? Quite simply....economy be damned...I'd rather have a boring SL "as others might say" than be peppered with crap advertising from slimey money grubbing ad-farm monkeys. Whether it's a sign, a group notice, sim resources, whatevah... If SL were to ever allow it again, I'd like to not only see age verification, but also restricted to location, IE, private sims only, not on mainland.

Sheesh....see what -30c weather does to you on a Monday morning...now where's my coffee.

OK, where is this so-called downturn in the SL Economy? The numbers I have seen published by Linden show no decline. A few anecdotes from failing business owners doth not a trend make.

SL IS DYING! SL IS DYING!

Sheesh

What an astonishingly worthless article. Gods forbid they use actual stats as opposed to just making things up on the fly -- many, many months after the fact, no less.

First, I have to consider the source. Jackpot.co? Come on. LOL

Secondly, my business is doing great.

Third, I see no effects in SL whatsoever except the occasional whiner who think somehow gambling will miraculously come back. Most have given up and gone away. Thank God. Everyone in SL thinks their little part of it is the center of the SL universe. The gambling ban proved there's no one pillar holding the economy together.

Fourth, the internet would run just fine without online gambling why would we think SL would be any different?

THE SKY DID NOT FALL!!!!!

Don't buy Zee's economy babble. The amount of money that people spend per capita has shrunk as the population boomed. That is, people people are either less willing to spend it, like Ricardo and his non-mod issue, or people are just unwilling to put any money on their credit cards/paypal - also very common. The economy is not growing in proportion to the population boom. Makes sense, since the rise of the bot farm/campbots.

There is also the case of people, like me, who just don't have anything left they want to buy. I spend nowhere near as much as I did, there isn't anything left i need or want save for anoccasional clothes spree. I would easily buy 10k block s of lindens weekly and spend most of it. Now I buy 2 a month. one covers tier, one for spending money.

I think it's time for you to redecorate.

I just did. I can use the saved money anyway, I bought a new RL TV yesterday

most people anywhere CAN'T think...

OMG! This just in! Furries and Goreans at war! Could this be the end of SL?!

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!11!!11!1111 AHHHHHHHHH!

Wait. False alarm. I meant,

"OMG BANKS OUTLAWED!!! RUN!!11!!1111 NO! DON'T RUN! TAKECOVERTHENRUNNNN!!"

Phew. ok. In a few minutes I plan to panic over adfarms, IBM's sims, the sex industry, capri pants, skins with painted on pubes, /b/tards, Patriatric Nwords, LL's hippie goofball approach to doing business, the forum hangout (THERE! I said it out loud!), and banlines.

Please stand by.

Hmmm, the Lindex market data shows more strength than it did 3 months ago. I don't see any downturn at all.