Isn't gambling business subject to licenses?

i was wondering, shouldn't all the sl casino present a licenses to be allowed to do theyr job?

You sure are keeping busy.

any attempts to clean the filth in the pool's drains should be tried

Mmyes.



Well.

Shouldn't all the hookers in SL have health certificates?

I am sure they use condoms!

/Tina - EXAKT blushing

nah seriously, isn't gambling etablisments illegal in usa without a gambling license?

LL is a US company, our ho's don't need no stinkin' health certificates!



Honestly, though, I have no idea how online gambling is run, anyone else?

Since gambling in SL doesn't use real money it's not considered gambling, it's a game. So no laws are broken. Same for the hookers. You pay in lindens, which isn't money so no laws are broken. It's just a game as far as the law is concerned.

Yeah, but you can cash out those lindens. Especially the person running the casino.

I doubt anyone cares, though, even if it wasn't kosher. But I really don't know what the laws are in regards to an online gambling site or what laws, if any, apply to them, other than taxable income.

And that is the reason LL said that L$ has no value. But what will it mean when they sell L$ themselfs. Suddenly they will be sellings something valueless.

Anything can be perceived to have value, that doesn't make everything a currency (in today's legal sense, since that's what the topic is about). The Lindens deciding to call their game units dollars does not make the international currency market or the U.S. recognize it as one. If you cash out anything in to USD inside the U.S. it is taxable income over a certain threshold; whether it be L$ or WoW gold or baseball cards. The poster above is correct that what happens in SL does not fall under the legal definition of gambling, in the U.S. I'm only talking about one country though, I don't know the laws of every country.

but in casinos you play with plastic coins itsnot real money either

I think this is a very murky area, actually Kyrah. I refuse to build casinos or clubs or shops which are going to have gambling equipment in them.

There are several areas of concern for me. Even if all the machines in SL worked to a generous payout policy that relfected RL controls on gambling, I worry about the easy access to gambling in SL, that may lure people who would otherwise have no contact with gambling in RL, into an addiction in SL. I was told of one case where an avatar spent thousands of dollars of her group's money in gambling, and then thousands more in trying to recover the money.

The second area of concern is that many casinos and machines in SL do not pay up with the same regularity as RL casinos and machines. I think casinos are bad enough in RL, where they are controlled and regulated, let alone in the unregulated jungle of SL. The trouble is that many naive players think that the same laws obtain in SL as RL...they think that their chances of winning or losing are controlled by some rules, and they in any case often misunderstand the rules of chance and think that if they pump enough money into a machine it "must" pay them back eventually.

This can be exacerbated by dishonest owners refusing to allow machines to pay the higher prizes, or taking the equipment before it has paid out.

The question of whether RL laws and regulations can even translate into SL is complex, because the people playing the game are in different countries and states where the law may be very different. In some, gambling will be entirely outlawed.

I see the risk of someone with an addictive personality being drawn into gambling in SL as a much more worrying and higher risk than teens being exploited.
Cali

Isn't it funny how Second Life is suddenly a 'game' with 'play money' when it comes to casinos and suchlike - yet it's a 'platform' with a 'real useable economy' when you want to convert that same play money to real money via Lindex?

Lewis

Casinos in SL could definitely qualify to be 100% illegal without a liscence. SL is considered a website... basically, any casino owner is setting up a website where there is gambling. People are trading in their USD$ in for $Lindens... aka 'chips' and gambling. There are no governing factors for SL casinos.

A) SL casinos are illegal because they are unliscenced online gambling establishments

B) SL casinos are doing nothing in terms of age verification. 21 is the legal gambling age in most states, not 18.

C) SL casinos are not filing income tax properly. If they were, they would have to list the company as a casino and the income as gambling income.

Do land barons have a real estate licenses?

Oh.. So in real life, casinos are also 'just a game', because you have to buy chips to play?
You don't actually use real money at the roulette table.

SL is not per se a website, while it does exist online, it runs entirely from corporate controlled servers. The linden dollar... that was answered before, Im not going to cover that again, just read above where everyone else argued about it.

My suggestion to you is this: If you are so terribly concerned with all the SL casinos, and you feel they are violating some sort of US law, you need to contact your congressman, or attorney general. Disscussing this on these forums will get you nowhere.

On a side note: I personally, have no problems with SL casinos. I think they are doing their thing and I dont care what they do with their proceeds. I also could care less about people who complain on the forums about legality issues in SL but dont try to do anything about it.

yeah what Vares said

Casino chips have a fixed chip to USD ratios and "the house" buys the chips back from you when you're done at that fixed rate.

The L$ has no redeemable face value. You can try selling it to other people but "the house" isn't going to give you anything for them. Whether that's a sufficiently different case or not ... who knows.

If you buy peso's and gamble online with them at a web site hosted in Mexico... are you really breaking the law?

The casino will redeem the chips. LL will not redeem L$.

indeed, your right. BUT. how LL say it to the law so to speak is that when we buy L$, we are buying a "product", something that people trade in (like eggs for milk). then we can sell these to ppl for RL $$$. its not under any law as its an "item" being "sold" not an item or currency beng converted, but LL words this dfferntly on differnt pages of the site...

*prays his casino wont be shut down*

ALSO

what about Dj's or clubs paying APRA fees? (the fee for publicly playing somsone elses music

It doesn't seem too clear. The gambling games are made and run by residents who are aren't necessarily US citizens but they are hosted on US servers using a currency that has no value but can be exchanged for real money.

If they got in trouble for gambling I don't think declaring the linden to have no value would hold water with a court when they also operate a currency exchange market.

Perhaps we are finally understanding the reasons why very few, if any, other computer games operate a fully interchangeable with the real world economy.

And reasons why Second Life shouldn't be either.

Whatever pipedream Phillip Linden may have, it won't get around real world laws and procedures when they are challenged in court regarding gambling, taxation etc. I think it's just a matter of when, not if, as SL grows and more people - and groups - become aware of it.

Lewis