account suspended for a FREE money orb!!

Its pretty simple really, the point at which money enters and leaves linden labs is what counts for tax purposes:

- When my credit card is debited for subscription fees or land fees, thats "expense"

- When I send money from my linden dollar balance to PayPal, thats "income"

Until its "constructively received" (a technical tax term, that means you can now spend
the money for other things), its just an accounting credit on Linden Labs books.

A similar example is when you work a regular job, and they track hours worked, you
have a balance accumulating on the books, but its not income until you get the paycheck
in your hands.

Anything that happens in between as far as linden transactions among players is irrelevant,
its not "real money" until you can take it to McDonalds and buy a big Mac with it .

LOL - How utterly ridiculous. Last I checked there are Linden-made Money Trees everywhere. THOSE ARE RANDOM PAYOUTS, without requiring a pay in. FFS, LL, get your dogma straight.

Except there is the minor problem, in that Supply Linden sold over US$500,000 in L$ directly to residents in November alone. So LL is setting themselves up for a ruling that L$ DO have value, as LL DOES make 6 figures a month off the sale of L$ directly to SL Residents.

robin flat out admitted that L$ have value in one of the gambling blogs.

there is no debate about whether or not L$ have value.

No he doesn't, he just superciliously pretends to. I've read comments from Liaisons that even they don't know how LL works and they're paid employees.

Again.. I didn't say hes an all-knowing denizen of SL-land

Simply he knows more than most of us, not because he's volunteering to LL, but because he's been around a while. Sure lots of people have, but hes been active enough in the forums, and he's generally active and really is knowledgable. I meant strife as a person seems to generally know more htan most of us when it comes to things like this, and he often takes more are interpreting things than others.

EDIT::
He's also been around a lot longer than the majority of forum regulars these days.. no, not longer than all, but most yeah.

That also helps with the insight.. it seems you ave a grudge against him for some reason...

If a free money giver is against the rules, money trees and who knows what else would seemingly be against the rules too... and that's why I'm subscribed to this thread *thumbs up*

i think some lil bits are left out...

My definition of gambling in SL

Buying anything from a vendor and praying its actually delivered

Investing in any kind of business in SL on such an unstable platform

Planning your business and praying LL doesnt change the rules on you

Dealing with LL Billing in any way shape or form

All of the above add up to crap shoot to me...what you all think?

Or work for someone that is too cheap to pay even though they can afford to pay.

Things which do not require a wager are not gambling.

A money orb that gives gifts of money to random players is not gambling.

A lucky chair or a money tree is not gambling.

None of those things is illegal, according to what the Lindens have said.

If I were the OP, I would pursue this matter, and get the infraction stricken from my alt's record.

coco

And there is a WORLD of difference between something having VALUE, and something being a currency with backing and recognised on the world exchange.

The L$ is not money.

The L$ has value, yes, but so do empty soda cans.

As for LL making 6 figures off the sale of L$....so what? Nike makes billions off shoe sales, but tennies still have no value on the money market.

~Jessy

That is a totally inaccurate statement. Poker is a game of skill but it was targeted by Linden Lab's wagering policy. By comparison calling zyngo, DMC and similar games skill based games is laughable. The level of skill they require is roughly the equivalent or less than that of tic tac toe and the element of chance involved is far more significant. There is nothing in the policy against wagering that grants an exemption to games that require a payment and where random number generation or its equivalent has an influence on the outcome. There is nothing in the policy which implies it does. In fact the policy implies that such games are banned because it lists poker as an example of a banned game.

What is really going on then? One possibility is that the Linden Lab personnel in charge of enforcing the policy by and large simply lack the language comprehension and logic skills to apply it. That point was only magnified by Strife's initial response to the OP (although granted Strife was never in charge of enforcing the policy he was the former moderator for this forum). In other words they are incapable of applying the mechanics of the language and logic of the policy to situations as they arise ingame as aptly demonstrated in the OPs example and even more so in Linden Lab's facilitation and assistance in the promulgation of slot gambling by supporting its advertisement ingame and select members of the Linden Lab community saying that the games are allowed under the wagering policy.

Another possibility is that Linden Lab doesn't really care about gambling in game per se. They only care about gambling that will be recognized as such under the UIGEA. So while a game like poker is a game of of skill, since it is a game specifically targeted by the proponents of the UIGEA, Linden Lab is going to ban it. Since games like Zyngo and DMC, which are undeniably gambling games, are basically an SL phenomemon and obscure to unknown to those outside of SL, Linden Lab figures it will not get pinched for them, so it allows them and even faciliates them so it can milk them for classified ad revenue as well. The truth is probably a combination of the two possibilites, i.e. those high enough up the chain of command with the aptitude to carry the policy to its logical conclusion and shut down zyngo, DMC and all their ilk would rather allow them for whatever enhancement they give Linden Lab in terms of ad revenue and game appeal to players and therefore are intentionally not doing anything about it while allowing those further down the chain of command to run around clueless without solid guidance on the policy leading them to draw their own conclusions including the false one that the slot based games are officially allowed under the ant-wagering policy when they clearly are not.

I think this part of your analysis is spot on. The impetus for Linden enforcing a gambling ban has nothing to do with any moral issues over gambling; rather, its a game-viability decision based on the reprucussions of violating the UIGEA.



This part, however, I think you're off the rails on. Take a look at the economic metric data - one thing Linden is extremely transparent about.

Classified sinks do not directly translate into revenue for Linden Lab. Indirectly, I suppose you could make an argument that because Linden sells off currency, indirectly they benefit by keeping our economy stable (by having enough sinks to offset the sources). I'd argue that the sold currency revenue Linden makes is a drop in the ocean compared to the revenue they earn off US$ land fees.

Agreed that the UIGEA is frustrating, idiotic, and silly. But bans on gambling have nothing to do with making Linden Lab money. Rather, the policy has everything to do with preventing Linden Lab from *losing* money.

The OP has been suspended, live chat isn't an option.

Let us know what happened? Too many times incoorect assumption occure. I like to to the truth about this one. If in fact your telling the truth.

I spoke to live chat and they said they have referred my support ticket to someone (??) but I have yet to see any action or lifting of the suspension (of my alt.) - the ticket just says 'work in progress'.

And yes I am absolutely telling the truth - the Free Money Orb that was returned to my alt's inventory and referred to in the suspension email CANNOT BE SET TO RECEIVE PAYMENTS - so gambling is simply out of the question!

I will post back here when I get a result and when if I hear whether or not 'free money orbs' and similar devices are allowed or not. At the rate things normally go my suspension will be lifted by the time a response is forthcoming!! (ban ends Friday) but I still need to know what's what regarding this - plus an apology would be nice!!!

ok i have to agree with this, Lindens had to have made a mistake. This would mean that all money/raffle balls have to go, and that is not gambling there since nothing at all is wagered. Are they now going to also take away the skill sploders that some of us have. This is getting totally nuts.
Lindens wake up and let this person back in game and an apology.

Well they have to say "we" are sorry, if they didnt use proper judgement when taking this extreme action. How can they confuse a raffle ball with a gambling device? EKkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk oh boy i feel sorry for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dont know if this got mentioned before, but what was the orb called? Could it be that they didnt investigate it by testing it or anything, but it was reported (no idea why) and they took it down and issued the suspension based on the name of the item? Was it called 'Random Money Orb" or something that didnt indicate that it was free?

With the new search, we know they can do searches on land by the name of objects. I wonder if any others have had a temporary ban because of this but just dont post on the forums. (Again, I am sorry if I am repeating anything that was posted already, I sorta skimmed the replies with this thought in mind).

This counts as cash income/expense for those operating on a cash basis. For an accrural basis (which applies to very few people here), the rules are different. (Although one may argue that converting linden dollars to US dollars in your account with Linden is a cash transaction, even though you still need to move the cash to PayPal before using it.)

None of which really matters to this discussion, because barter income is taxable at the time of the barter, regardless of when an item is converted to cash. If I do some consulting for a small computer store, and they give me a laptop instead of cash as payment, then the value of that laptop is income to me when I receive it. I don't get to wait for a year when it's gone done in value and then sell it to figure out how much I was paid.

So if I have a Texas hold 'em poker table in SL is that a game of skill or chance? One could argue for either case IMO...

Can you just randomly click on people and give them money still? lol


Also if you want to run a Casino in SL just call it a Bank, they don't ban those.

WPT seems to think its skill.

As far as LL is concerned, it's gambling and it's illegal. That's the bottom line.

However, amongst serious players, the consensus seems to be that it is a game of skill with an element of luck. The skill comes in recognizing and exploiting situations where you have a positive expectancy of winning. You do that by calculating your odds, learning your opponents betting patterns and playing style, and by employing a strategy to exploit his or her style while still making decisions where you generally have the best odds of winning. Over a statistically significant sampling of hands, a skilled player will consistently win. The fewer hands played, the more it becomes a game of luck. For example, if a casual player and I were to play one hand of poker, we would each have a 50% chance of winning. It doesn't matter that the casual player doesn't play much poker and that I have over 500,000 hands recorded in my pokertracker database and a lifetime of live play. We would just turn the cards up and hope for the best. On the other hand, if we were to play a series of one on one tournaments, say, best 7 of 13, with a nice deep starting stack and a good blind structure, a casual player wouldn't stand much of a chance. At that point, it becomes a game of skill.