Gambling Ban -- All Gaming or None

As a RL professional poker player I don't really have any problems with LL's recent decision to ban gambling on SL. Many have commented on the unfairness of it all but like it or not, LL needs to observe American law and the laws of California. It sucks, but here we are.

Where I do have a problem, and hope that the situation is rectified, is with the slew of Tringo/Slingo/etc... type games that are lotteries which continue to operate and be listed in events. There is some fuzziness in CA law as to whether a game like poker is a game of skill or a lottery (read: lottery in its generic sense is used to mean any game of chance). There are mentions of various poker games being skill (Texas Hold 'em) and others being chance (Stud) and still other mentions of the games being skill but high hand and bad beat jackpots being a lottery. CA gets around this by licensing specific poker casinos and limiting what games they may offer. Most other states in the US have ruled that poker is a game of chance.

The point to all this is that there should be an even application of LL's policy -- particularly when law is used as a basis for enforcement of that policy. There is no difference between a poker tournament and a Tringo game where people contribute to a pot that is distributed based on chance. I do believe any court would recognize these games as falling under the lottery umbrella. With poker being outlawed, these other games currently operating and ANY game that requires a monetary outlay in order to have an opportunity to win money and/or prizes should be outlawed as well.

Nothing against Tringo players or operators of Tringo games but fair is fair and if this is the environment we have to 'live' under, an even-handed application of the rules should be expected.

Hrm, to the best of my knowledge and ability to parse the new TOS, all gambling in SL is banned now, for all intents and purposes. This would include Tringo, yes?

I don't have a issue with gambling being banned either. But what I do have a serious issue with is LL changing their polica from one day to the next without prior notice. Now some will say "well this was posted on the blog before and it just had to come down to this". Na it wasn't really. There was issues with the Fed's in the past yeah, and yes, gambling is illegal in "most" states in the US.

Now US law applies to LL with them being based in Cali, this is fine too. But you can NOT just kick a lot of people out of thier existence from one day to another like this. There has been people out there that owned 4 or more Casino's and employed over 50 SL residents, one casino was build on the center of 4 sims paying LL 1200US $ a month on tiers. Stock was traded on the WSE in SL that relied on the Casino profits. Banks relied on it as well as recent issues with Ginko just show.. and the list goes on and on.

LL in the future if you decide to hurt the SL economy real bad.. maybe give it a few days notice...

Here, some good read for you:

http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/07/27/ginko-financial-under-fire-caps-withdrawals/

http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/07/26/linden-lab-outlaws-second-life-gambling/

Yes it would. I did an unscientific search for Tringo yesterday under 'Events' and had 37 returns. Tringo, Greedy Greedy, etc.... all are targets. The question is whether they will be targeted with the same zeal as traditional casino games were hit.

I'll cut them some slack on this because I do believe casino owners had ample warning. I owned four casinos myself and saw the writing on the wall about six months ago. I did maintain a poker room until last week but it was used mostly for private games.

The issue -- for this thread at least -- is fairness and equity. Without getting too deep into the math; on a level playing field with a random number generator the house edge for the games that remain active in SL is much higher than for nearly all the games targeted and removed. These games of chance are certainly more of a longshot for players then playing blackjack, craps or poker.

If it is an issue of compliance with either what the Feds want or what their counsel is telling them, LL needs to shutdown all gaming and not just selectively target games you would typically see in a rl casino.

they say SL is a worldwide game, so they should make seperate country grids where things can be allowed. i as a german dont give a penny on US law, because it seems sometimes they have eaten too much fastfood. if they say its worldwide so why i have to follow stupid laes from other countries?

Until they release the Servers worldwide, which I imagine will happen someday, that's the way it is. LL has deferred to other countries laws in the past as well, they'll do what is in their best interest businesswise.

Those two links are not very closely related... The run on Ginko had more to do with the WSE theft and ties between Ginko and WSE than it did with the new policy on wagering, though the timing couldn't have been more perfect (in a train-wreck sort of way).

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So, casino gambling is legal in Germany? You can put slot machines and roulette wheels in your house and make money off them?

Because the businesses in those other countries have to follow the laws of those countries, some of which govern (in this case) what their users can and cannot do, and they don't get exemptions for you just because you don't live there.

Is it really so hard to understand that? Why do people keep repeating the same litany?


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is it really so hard to understand that its all a matter of licence? why do people always open theyr head when it better should be closed?
give a licence to run the game in another land and the law for the licence deoends on the law of the land where the licence is given to. for u explained that means if lindens sell a part of the SL licence to another land the US fastfood law dont works for this land!

@Nack: there are differences in germany, if u run a pub or other gastronomie, u can pull up slot machines as u like in a special number that depends on the space of ur business. u r not allowed to build up a casino without licence. but anyone can open a casino if he pays the high taxes for that.

the major problem with the "pot" games is the fact that many owners have set them to freeplay


sooo do you ban them all and break their evil machines, eventho some are running in freeplay?

or do you try to police something that can be changed after you leave?

1 is totally unfair
the other is impossible


course over time modifications of these games will exist that will not allow wagering but for now it will be interesting to see what the labs actually does

I appreciate all the thoughtful replies although the comments related to 'fastfood' seem a bit childish.

Many people, particularly in EU countries, believe that the US is denying some sort of basic freedom here in squashing gambling over the Internet. Even in European countries gaming is regulated. For example, the UK has very strict requirements for operating a casino. You can't just open up a casino because you feel it is your right. This goes for online or brick and mortar operations.

The sense in the poker community is that the US will have legalized online gaming at some point but it will be tightly controlled. Brick and mortar casinos such as MGM/Mirage and Harrah's will operate online casinos and funding accounts will be accomplished directly through banks and not through third party electronic wallet services such as NetTeller.

Now, none of this matters for SL. Regardless of what happens in the world outside of SL, they have decided not to be involved in gaming and as I have stated earlier, I'm OK with that. My concern, again, is that they are being selective in which games of chance they allow. Someone mentioned earlier that games with free pots are in the mix and it would be difficult to segregate them from paid pot games. Well, the same could be said for poker. I have tables. If I have a private party and invite friends over for a friendly game of cards where we all get our money back at the end, that would be the same as a free pot game. Yet, under the new policy, I could be terminated for doing that because it is a game of chance.

It is a vague policy as are most LL policies -- deliberate so that they always have wiggle room. That is their choice and if I ran the company I would probably do the same. But, the mantra needs to be -- If you are going to ban some then ban all. At some point this ugly mess is going to wind up in court so why not enforce the policy completely now. Start with the continued Tringo/Slingo listings in events.

I took out my take it or leave it because i didnt want to get into trouble. I just want to know if anyone has heard if we can still use sploder balls or are they outlawed too. Seems to me that LL wants to keep us in the dark and not tell us much, I don't like that.

Good point about the possible allowance of OL Gambling here. Even if it were allowed tomorrow, it still would not be permitted in SL because it won't be regulated. If MGM /Mirage or Bally's were to set up shop then maybe. Part of the reason I never spent much time in SL casinos, besides it seemed very boring as all online gambling does, is I didn't trust whether the games were on the level.

On off shore servers. Even if they were placed in say....Germany. They would still be subject to German Law. Gambling may be fine, but guaranteed something will pop up that will be found illegal, banned, and we'll be going at this all over again. Or are SL gamblers of the I want my fun, I don't care about yours mindset? (I don't think so).

No doubt, LL dealt from the bottom of the deck on this one, they should be ashamed of themselves. They could have given ample warning, no doubt. Even though the door was being shut back in April. But it's obvious now, they don't care about any of us, and are just too wrapped up in that stupid Tao to effectively run their business.

You can't gamble in SL anymore. But at least you have other online places to go for that if you are out of the US. For SL casino owners, at least honest ones, you got a raw deal, definitely.

if I remember correctly the law excludes horse racing(man does our govt. love their horsies), and lotteries(because it makes lots of cash for the states).

I agree.


There are games that the hosts ask for donations, which somewhat gets around the TOS. Those that don't and are outright pay-to-play are definitely against the TOS.


Every flavor pf poker, and every other card game for that matter, relies on chance, even if skill is also involved. Ever had a bad beat?


In theory, there will be.

I don't agree with the law on this, but as the orginal poster pointed out that doesn't really affect the reality we live with or that LL lives with. But in order to figure out what games qualify or not you don't look at the money going in or out, but the actual game machanics.

In order to be a gamble, there has to be a chance element that affects who the winner is of a given game. It doesn't matter if the element is 1pct or 99% as long as it is part of the game machanics to start with. ( your SO distracting you in the middle of a game doesn't count ).

Bingo style games, the orginal board you get is random. no two players have the same board. The random nature of the numbers being called doesn't directly effect gameplay a much as the board you start with. i.e. a good player with a board that doesn't have any pieces being called out is not going to win that round.

Poker, obviously the deck only has so many cards and everyone's set of cards is different regardless of which version of poker is being played. so again random elements control gameplay. Yes a skilled player can still win with a bad hand, but that has nothing to do with the legal side of this discusion.

in fact, the only board game in sl that the random generator has no real effect on gameplay is tringo. Every player has the same board and gets the same pieces in the same order. While individual luck may affect the outcome, luck is NOT a random element of the game machanics.

I am not saying this because I think tringo should be allowed or disallowed, only pointing to the game machanics as the principle determining factor. Now lots of other games and contests simply don't have to worry about this at all. Best whatever outfit, random tip balls, etc because on the surface you don't have to pay to win so they don't count as gambling to begin with.

now that being said, alot of comments have been made on the overall economy being impacted by this. Well they are right, even if you run a clothing store your sales are going to change as a result of this. Will it affect long term revenue though? That's alot harder to say. I suspect it actually even out as far as any changes to gambling are concerned. people that where loosing money to gambling might buy more often but your not going to have big winners stopping in and buying a ton of items all at once anymore.

however, when you look and the other markets that are affected directly or indirectly or because of their own issues at the same time. Yes the linden value is going to drop even more in the coming months. eventually it will probably recover but it just took 3 or more big hits all at one time.

I cashed out of SL along time ago because the underlaying economy is artificially supported by LL and you can not trust any business to be honest about it's own financial interests. They make the land, then sell the land, then tax you to keep the land all at inflated prices. They do the same thing with $L and there is no public or goverment or any other kind of watch on the process for doing this. Frankly I suspect they are going to have to change this, cause if you tried to do the same thing with real world assets it would violate several laws in most countries around the world.

I won't give LL a single penny of my money after seeing their idea of how to treat a client base over the years. Sure I log in and look around in Sl from time to time, but if they banned me I wouldn't really notice. Until we see the rise of VR nets, where the individual truely is allowed to control the size and content of their creations we are not going to have any true freedom in online worlds like SL, and that's the bottom line.

Dispite the law on internet gambling, even where gambling is allowed in the US, it is heavily regulated and watched. What was called gambling in SL would never fly any place in the US. Gambling in SL was like making a deposit with Ginko, odds were you would never see your money again.

They will have to pry my sploder out of my cold dead hands.

It'll be taken from your inventory when ya asleep ...along with 2000 other useful things during the next update !!!!

Sex is next.

Since the L$ is now real money

And

PayPal + Sex = NO NO

Then

The writing is on the wall. We know who pulls LL's strings now. The L$ HAS become real, it is no longer our world our imagination, the motto needs to be changed (I have some suggestions).

I'm only sorry I wasn't vocal when others before were GOMed. I would cite a famous german poem but it's been cited enough and I'm just as guilty.

Say goodbye to escorts and cam shows and stripper clubs and snap on toys ... ok say good bye to any of the forementioned that are not FREE. no I'm not into any of that sex stuff but many were not into simulated games of chance and they didn't care. People only care about thier own particular interests and it's easy to pick off one group at a time when no one supports each other.

L$ will be divorced from sex and sex will be free and all those whose interest in sex and L$ or have invested in it will be left holding the bag. LL does not care about it's residents nor it's groups and as an idividual cares NOTHING. LL only cares about LL.

I understand the changes, I disagree with the execution of the changes. LL doesn't have any respect for it's own community otherwise LL would be more graceful in how it chose to grow up.


I give it less then a year.

How many threads now then Chilly? This must be at least thread number 5 that you've spammed !!

Instead of counting threads, perhaps absorbing the contents would be more help. Chilly makes a valid point and it deserves repeating.

Just a thought -

If the point were so impressive - we wouldnt need it cross posted across the entire forums to "get it"