Gambling Returns to Second Life?

You people have no problem with fraud and gross neglect thats your damn problem. Maybe you people dont believe in something called right and wrong some are in grey areas to be sure the world is full of grey. But stealing and profiteering is wrong.

Want a smoking gun here look at Aargle Zymurgy's posting of governance meeting its entry number 25

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/business-land-economy/14502-gambling-still-trying-come-back.html

Zara Linden a senior member of the governance team is stating that zorkmids is leagal. The person asking the question follows up with but it has casino type games. She responds with it uses a skill game to win lindens currency which makes it legal. It is beyond clear that Linden Labs endorsed it and said it was legal. So people keep aruging that they didnt go read it there were mutliple witnesses there.

Smoking gun? Good luck with the cops getting that water pistol linked to the murder of a paper doll.

Hmm I fail to see anything saying they would always be legal, perhaps someone can point that out better, though I also not sure which bit of the following from Zara Lindens profile quoted in the above link people cannot comprehend in their cashblinded quest for suing people and companies. Zara is a member of the G-Team, but not a senior one.

*Please note, myself and other members of Gteam cannot offer approval for any in-world game. Do not send an IM. Please review the gambling blog post*

So people who keep arguing a senior Linden approved it with the company seal forever please go read it there were multiple witnesses there too.
It's laughable that people refer to a game as gambling to customerbase but then later believe isn't covered by a gambling ban because of a loophole it's not gambling..........

I have a problem with being endlessly browbeaten by people whose dodgy little loophole has been rightfully closed.

Yes that was posted in her profile approximiately two months ago after bicky beans launched and before Kain Cutter launched his Zlot Reelz game. I understand exactly what that is about and wont waste the time here on the whys. But it wasn't always there.

Ok this is why I hate forums its full of people that have no lives and argue even when it is right in their face. A high profile linden who is highly experienced with games dealing, dealing with things that are against TOS blatantly stating that the Zorkmid system is entirely legal. Sorry if people have problems with the facts. I will let you people go back to your lies and delusions. Oh how do people like you finish a statement oh hah finish it with a lol typically to help with the delusion that you made a point somewhere despite the facts. Sorry I really have no sympathy for a company that is so crooked. Bye bye sheep. Have fun letting others think for you.

I have a problem with companies who defraud its customers, lie, steal for who knows how much money. If there is no resolution its not a question this will be reported to the authorities

Even if the games are legal under any and all laws, LL owns SL. They can ban anything they want within it at any time, with or without notice. If we don't like it, there's the door.

Nice, lol !! So if you had a business that was legal and LL decided 6 months later it was illegal, you would have no problem with that? You need to work for LL, would fit right in.

However much you think it's Your World, Your Imagination, it's actually LL's to do with as they see fit, as Brenda rightly says.

They could make prim hair illegal tomorrow, and that would be that.

so....false advertising !

I didn't say I would like it. That's just the way it is. It's a reason why I would never invest myself in SL to that extent. It can all go Poof tomorrow.

*I'll ignore the insult of suggesting I could work for LL

*yawn*



Great! Let us know how it goes, will ya?

Looks like to me someone is in for a hard lesson on how REAL life REALLY works.

Spoiler hint: It ain't fair. Not fair at all.

Remember Banking?

Only because you choose to interpret it that way. A Linden employee indicating that the skill portion of the system was acceptable does NOT equate to Linden Lab approving the entire system or systems. And 'legal' isn't up to LL anyway.

Also, I REALLY don't see how anyone is being defrauded or stolen from because of the gambling ban. Inconvenienced and irritated, sure, but that's about it.

"Your world, your imagination" is a marketing slogan only. I mean, I can't sue LL because SL doesn't match my imagination. It would be like trying to sue Red Bull because their product didn't really give you wings

It's not true that Linden Lab could just start banning businesses arbitrarily with impunity. Linden Lab actively advertises and encourages people to spend their time and money creating such businesses. To promise someone that they may "Make real money in a virtual world. That's right, real money," then to disallow that business after someone has made an investment on that promise, will open up the promisor to liability. Those TOS provisions will not protect Linden Lab if it acts in bad faith; those TOS provisions start getting tossed under doctrines like unconscionability.

A gambling ban isn't just an arbitrary ban, though. It's based upon Linden Lab's necessity to comply with federal law. What federal law allows or prohibits is out of Linden Lab's hands. Linden Lab's TOS does make it clear that it cannot allow illegal activities on its network; this is not inconsistent with the promise that people can come to Second Life to make "real money," because it's not reasonable to assume that such a promise extends to illegal activities. In fact, contracts for illegal activities are not enforceable in courts of law anyway. Linden Lab's policies alert potential business persons that gambling is not protected. Because the gambling ban is not an arbitrary decision, because it complies with federal law, and because Linden Lab makes a special effort to alert potential business persons about gambling specifically, they can rely on their TOS to protect them from liability on the gambling ban.

Now, if an agent of Linden Lab (whether a lawyer or not, whether in writing or in conversation), actually told a prospective game-maker that a game seemed to be legal, then that does create a potential liability problem for Linden Lab. The business is responsible for the acts of its agents. While a particular LL employee may not be able to guarantee that federal law enforcement will not find a particular game to be illegal, stating that the game is legal does imply that LL will take no action against it unless federal law enforcement were to actually instigate some sort of proceeding based upon the game.

Even though I am not witness to any of the conversations about the game at issue in this thread, nor have I seen any evidence, I can probably make a pretty good guess as to what happened.

LL probably did review the game. An initial internal discussion came to the opinion that it was probably legal. When the game-maker asked a particular LL employee about the game, the employee overstated the internal discussion, and carelessly stated that the game looked legal without qualifying the statement as the LL employee should have. The game-maker, getting the answer that the game-maker wanted, figured that the answer was too good to be true. Instead of trying to confirm the answer and actually discovering that the answer was too good to be true, the game-maker continued with the game and planned to use the one casual, poorly-made statement as a "gotcha."

It's probably true that there is an unaltered screenshot of a Linden Lab employee okaying the game. My guess as to why this screenshot isn't posted all over the web, proving Linden Lab's treachery to the world, is because anyone viewing the actual screenshot and seening the statement in context would probably realize that it was an unreliable statement.

Even though businesses are bound by the actions of their employees, this issue probably isn't good lawsuit material. Courts don't reward bad-faith acts and gotcha moments. So the question remains why the game-maker did not seek some sort of solid confirmation of the LL position that the game was legal. If the answer to that question is that the game-maker knew that an attempt to confirm the answer would be that LL would give a different answer, then the game-maker's reliance on the employee's statement about legality was not a reasonable reliance. It was unreasonable reliance- a "gotcha" moment- and courts don't reward that.

BRAVO SORINA!

Here is another scenario that may have some actual happenings with this new so called ban

It all starts with the Z$ games, the creator of the Z$ games appears to have some type of relationship with the Lindens or Linden, he had succeeded in getting his system approved.

His system was hacked (random generator seed was cracked)? A very large sum of money was lost.

Here comes his God Linden to bail his arse out?

To bail his arse out and make him still look good, lets ban this new LEGAL way of playing, if this almighty creators system can be cracked , we will ban it.

If the close Linden friend can't have his faulty system to make money why should anyone with a good system be allowed to.

yes, this is an alt

I nolonger play the game because the Lindens slimey ways are sickening, but I still talk to all my friends in game and I still get my laughs from reading all the forum.

I Admire you Sorina, you are standing up for what you believe in all your post have made me smile.

Have A Good Day!

All this whining and one thing hasn't been addressed....

LL announced publicly and officially that gambling with anything of value to obtain anything of value using any device relying on a random number generator is banned.

They NEVER announced that there was a legal way around this.

I assume someone pointed out the flaws to this loophole that the G-Team didn't see when commenting on their observation of the games.

If an employee makes an observation and determination and it is later overridden by management, it is not fraud on their part. (let's say an employee at a gasoline station receives a fax from the home office and from the blurry print assumes gas is now to be priced at $0.376 per gallon and does so and people start filling up and calling their friends. The manager arrives 15 minutes later and points out the speck on the fax was just a speck, and the decimal should be elsewhere and reprices the gas at $3.76 per gallon. The people that drove all the way to the station do not DESERVE the gas at the cheaper price... no matter how much they whine about it and verbally attack anyone that tries to tell them as much)

QFT with bells on.

I could almost follow what the hell you were trying to say.

C- for effort.

Better luck next time.

I'm surprised they just didn't simplify it by saying that games based on wagering and/or jackpotting were banned.

IE, if you pay money in (ie, a wager), and are playing to get some money back out, from $0 (loss) to many times what you put it (jackpot), and the game uses ANY kind of obfuscated determination mechanism, be it random numbers (any kind or percentage), pseudorandom events (click on this first!), or any non-competitive activity, then you're gambling. To put it simply, gambling is where you wager on a chance to turn a little money into a lot of money, at a (usually high) risk of loss of some or all of your wager. That ESPECIALLY goes for where the play is repetitive (hands of cards, spins of wheels, throws of dice, pulls of slot lever, etc), allowing you to rack up significant losses quickly.

Things that would make it not gambling:

1) You don't wager money, or tokens bought with money.
2) You don't win money, or tokens redeemable for money.

I would add a third one, even though the law probably wouldn't allow for it, either:

3) Any/all proceeds are given to the winner(s) and/or donated to a valid, registered charity.

If you say that would kill 99% of the "fun" games in SL, you're right; that is because THEY ARE GAMBLING GAMES.

yep QFT

if one person wins money when another loses money

it was gambling.

If they did it on the internet, it was internet gambling.

One of the reasons that Linden Lab's gambling policy is not clear is because the laws with which Linden Lab is trying to comply are unclear.

The "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006" doesn't actually define "internet gambling" (though it does, interestingly enough, provide exemptions to what will constitute unlawful internet gambling under the act).

The act is vague because of two common legislative problems. One is that it is not self-contained; it piggy-backs by reference to other laws, leading to confusion as to what it actually prohibts. Second, it's another case in which the lawmakers did not consider fully all possible applications of the law, and they just assumed that everyone knows what gambling is such that they don't need to define it. And anyway, the legislators sloppily leave it to law enforcement to fill in those vague details that the legislators could not bother to supply in the legislation.

So Linden Lab is left with the choice of making a simple but overbroad policy, or a complicated policy that attempts to best allow any activity that is actually legal.

no hate for the guy that put SL in jeopardy by being greedy with a loophole so he could make some money?

If they profitteer money they dont have that right. They had a huge amount of time to say no or say hey lets take a closer look. Again its not that they banned it for the 100th time tis that they declared it was legal, profiteered off it then turned around and say thats a no no. I got a response from LL they are still dodging questions and won't say what rules changed.

If their clear incompetance or act of fraud which ever it may be costs people and businesses money they need to do the right thing. People who have issues with games in SL keep over looking the issues of fraud. Also they selectively picked which loop hole to attack after proftiing off it. Bicky Beans is still up.

Zara linden declared the system and games were legal in an open and public format at a G-Team Meeting.