Opinions needed on a situation

Hey everyone, something happened yesterday and I'm not quite sure what I should do. Its a bit of a long story so bear with me

I go to a lot of games places in SL and usually spend quite a lot of money there (1000's of Lindens). I generally end up losing more than I win, but I just enjoy playing the games, and that good feeling I get when I do happen to win.

Anyway, yesterday I went to one of the games places that I regularly go to (almost every day), and started to play one of the Deal Extreme games. It was a 10x machine, so that if you put 200L in you would win 2000L back. Anyway I played the first game and won 2,000L, so I played again and won another 2,000L. I then realised that the high score that you have to beat to win was set at 4999, whereas all the other machines were set at 49999. The owner had made a mistake and left off the last '9' so that the score to win was set very low.

Being the gambler that I am and getting the rush of winning, I kept playing for a few more games. I played 5 games in total for a win of 10,000L minus the 5x 200L to play each game, so I actually won 9,000L. In 2 of those games I actually DID beat the 49999 score which was what it was meant to be set at. I could have kept on going and playing more games but I didn't as I have a conscious and I felt a bit guilty as I realised the owner must had made a mistake setting the high score. So I sent him a notecard letting him know I thought he had made a mistake and wanted to let him know before too many more people came and played the machine and drained him of all his money. I thought it was the right thing to do.

Well I got a reply from him which wasn't very nice saying that if I didn't pay all the money back that I would be banned and he would tell all the other games places to ban me as well. I have spent a lot of money at his games place and he would have made a lot of money from me previously. Now I'm pretty sure that legally I don't have to pay the money back as I just played a machine and beat the high score each time. Its not MY fault that HE made a mistake and set the high score too low.

Now I know that morally I should pay the money back, but legally I don't have to. If I pay it all back I am left out of pocket again, but will have a clear conscious, and if I don't I will remain banned and he will probably keep hassling me for the money back. I don't really care about being banned cos I should stop wasting all my money gambling anyway.

What do you guys reckon I should do?

Sure is a lot of "bait" style posts in these forums lately.


Anyway gambling in SL has been banned. This guy has no morals to begin with, keep the money, put him on mute and move on.

I think the owner just solved your gambling problem lol.
He could have asked nicely to return the money before saying he would bad mouth you in all of SL. For the $36 US I'll just return it since it's for fun anyways. Before gambling was banned when I won I always donated my winnings to the host or owner, I did it for fun, not to feed myself.

well if he would have responded with a thank you i would have thought about it but if he is gonna be an asshat in his first reply..pfft..sounds like he wouldn't care if it was the other way around..i'd keep it for having to put up with asshattery in his response..

the best way to learn is sometimes from losing..let him lose once or twice..it's all in the game.
don't lose sleep over it because iam sure he wouldn't return anyone ther money if it were reversed and the machines were being unfair..

You ask for our moral opinion on this issue. At the same time you knew that the owner had made a mistake, but you kept on playing and taking his money. Now you say you have no legal obligation to give it back.

I'm sorry, but both the owner and you are morally in fault here.

Go shopping and be glad this isn't Vegas where the casino owner's goons can drag you into a back room and "persuade" you to return the money you won in his badly programmed game.

I'd tell him bollocks. That's a disgraceful response to someone pointing out he's made a mistake. Keep the money.

Normally, I'd say yes, pay it back.

However, this person opted to threaten you with blacklisting, instead of being grateful you dropped him a note letting him know about it at all. I say follow your conscience. If you can keep the bread and feel justified in doing so after the way he treated you, then do so. If you can't, give it back and simply don't frequent his business anymore.

Setting aside the fact that the game you played is "illegal" in SL, my initial response would be that yes, it would be good of you to either 1) Stop playing the game after discovering the exploit or 2) Refund the game owner for those funds obtained after discovery of the exploit, in cases where you didn't reach the intended high score.

However, if I had gotten such an ass-y response from someone I was trying to HELP by notifying them about an exploit, I probably would have kept the money as well. But I am spiteful like that.

Of course this would mean I'd be banned from his place, but I wouldn't want to patronize anyone who treated me poorly, anyway.

I'm not so sure about that. I'm fairly positive these games count as "games of skill".

Can someone dig up a post from LL or something that shows what's what with these games?

If it truly were a game of skill... Such a steep windfall of winnings should be possible. All things being within the TOS, your skills were awarded fair and square and the machine owner shouldn't be butthurt over the risk they took. =^-^=

I'd keep the money and AR him for running gambling machines, but I'm kind of a jerk that way sometimes.

Or return the money, and the next time you find a machine doing the same thing, post about it here instead of telling him.

Agreed. However. What I would do here is donate the money to some worthy cause or exceptional build in SL (eg, the GNUbie store, the Island of Svarga, NCI).

You may be morally imperfect for taking money by exploiting a known weakness; but it is the same moral imperfection (greed) that drives this person to run his gaming "business" in the first place. That puts you both on morally-equal ground. The only difference is, you offered to help, and rather than being grateful, he decided to be a heel about it. Therefore you win, he loses, and you may keep the 10,000L with what I think should be a clear conscience.

Never mind if their IMs are capped, they're not getting the notecard. Worse yet, no email with the message if they have IMs go to email.




1) Not brag that you've been violating the Terms of Service by gambling.

2) Screw 'im. AR his casino, gambling's prohibited in SL.

This.

Compromise. For the two games where you exceeded the 49999 score, keep the money. The rest you give back, and tell him about himself.

Or keep the winnings where you exceeded the score, and then do what someone else said and donate the balance to an SL build or charity. Then send the casino owner a note telling him where "his" money went in case he still wants to recoup it...

Nah, don't pay it back, if he was a nice guy then I probably would, but as wasn't nice, I wouldn't.

Gambling in any form whether skilled or chance (even skilled games have chance) is a scam, there's nothing creative or intelligent about it. it's all designed for some losers who don't want to work for their money to scam others out of their money. There's nothing glamourus or sexy or wonderful about greedy machines taking a bunch of other greedy people who hoping to score big for no work. I say if they make such as stupid mistake and not check their work take all their money and laugh in their face. Greed and stupidity don't go together.

If this is a bait post so people go running to casinos to find other idiots and they fall for it then I guess stupid people and greed do mix...

weell you only took 9000 from him
you could have carried on playing..
you could have tp all your friends
you did send him a notecard when you started to feel guilty
he was an asshat

go shopping i say
dont just go and blow the 9000 on another asshat machine

After that response, I'd have thought heavily about going back right away with an alt and draining him for enough to warrant a proper response. 99.997% of people would give back the money if asked properly in that situation, so this owner who shoots himself in the foot and moves right to asshat mode gets no mercy from me.

I guess you could go to xstreet, find a 9000L item, and buy a gift for that game owner.

Thanks to all those that have replied so far. This is not a 'bait' post .....it really did happen, and I just wanted to get other peoples opinions on the matter. Also it is a legal gaming place in SL.....they class the games as a "game of skill" although there is not really any skill involved its more luck involved in what numbers come up.

As I mentioned I do have a conscience and stopped playing when I got the guilts about it, and then thought it was the right thing to do to notify the owner of his mistake. I thought that he would thank me for letting him know, and I guess I was hoping that maybe he would allow me to keep the winnings, which I won by beating the score that was set, and right it off as his mistake. In a business like that he should have checked that he had put in the correct score to beat. Also if he had have talked to me nicely about it instead of immediatley demanding I pay it all back or get banned from everywhere, I probably would have paid him back.

Anyway thanks for your resonses....seems like most people think I shouldn't pay it back.

Is the game there still set to 4999? If yes... send me an LM, SO i can "check" myself ... just sayin...