Isn't gambling business subject to licenses?

It's real money because the casino recognizes the cash equivalent of the chips. The chips are cashed in on exit.

But you have a point. Though LL says the L$ has no monetary value there still is the Lindex which is connected to the Secondlife site. More imporatntly the client itself has a "buy Linden$" function so there is a cash-to-linden$ transaction.

LL better look into those legalities.

Wow, you guys must really think that LL is dumb. If you didn't, why would you think that they would have never thought of these things before? I am sure the LL legal team has done their homework and found all the case law they needed to do what they are doing. Also, in most states, if not all, the gabling age is 18. To enter most casinos, you have to be 21 because of the alcohol they serve. If you don't believe me, find out the age you need to be to go buy a lotto ticket.

You honestly don't see many Linden decisions to support this viewpoint?

Lewis

Very Good, Very Good

Linden Labs should now make all trade of L$ into US$ Illegal. Some Virtural Worlds allow you to buy extra in-world currency but thats all you are doing is buying more, not trading it. And in these cases you cannot sell the game currency back to the company or private individuals or trade your excess game currency for Real Life Currency. You can give private individuals game currency but you cannot sell it to them.

All these examples proves the above point.

I think this is a good ideal, but if I am wrong, point it out to me in a good mannor, do not attack me for my opinion.

You're wrong.

Actually, you can - in all cases, currency exchanges have operated succesfully for years. In most cases, companies have stopped trying to police it - because they can't, succesfully. LL has simply recognized this, and decided to get in on the action, and provide a respectable way to do it, rather than back-alley systems like ebay.

And nothing above proves any point you have ever made, by the way. Just an FYI. The key word is "prove".

Why does there seem to be so much hostility going on with this question? It's a fascinating question, not only for SL, but for all virtual worlds in the future. To some extent, it's also uncharted legal waters and as such, there are no absolute answers. There will be fascinating legal and ethical arguments on both side in the future, and society will have to address these issues.

Asking these questions now, and thinking about them and the general implications is something that is necessary and quite interesting.

Because its not an innocent question.

Innocent or not, it's still an important and interesting question. And it extends past the legality/illegality of gambling. The implications are quite expansive. What about other financial regulatory laws? What about tax laws? What about moral laws? Even the most interesting question of if virtual worlds will not or cannot be regulated by real world laws, will that mean the eventual nullification of real world laws?

The real world is about to undergo a massive revolution because of virtual worlds. What are the implications of each on the other?

You asked why people were so hostile to the question, not if it was relevant or not.

Yeah, but it's a figure of speech, Rei

I think there's a difference between the tax issue and the gambling issue that I'd like to point out.

With taxes, the precedent is set - eBay. The US Gov doesn't (yet) require eBay to submit earnings figures about sellers, and so it stands to reason on legal precedent that it won't come to SL until after coming to eBay.

With gambling, technically speaking an ISP is not responsible for the content of person renting it.

However ....................................................

Linden Lab's TOS is tricky, because they have lots of clauses that distinguish SL as more of the MMOG model. -- Things like being able to use all content for promotional purposes. Things like residents technically not owning their content and it being able to be deleted for any reason.

So LL's own TOS leads me to believe that legally, LL asserts responsibility over content in a way that an Internet ISP does not. I'm not a lawyer though, so this is my own amateur interpretation.

From a practical perspective:

Practically, I think people speak about unregulated gambling to Linden Lab not because we think Linden Lab should be controlling a problem, but because we want to avoid the government coming in and claiming license to wreak havoc. It'd be much easier if LL stated a policy about unregulated gambling similar to that of child pornography or violated copyright ---

namely, that they would remove it on sight if Abuse Reported. I think that would be an excellent solution to keep out the Feds from having to barge into SL and get access to the databases.

However, I doubt this is in LL's current wishes. Gambling does draw a lot of people into SL, and there are prominent SL developers who have made gambling games.

...

So, what seems to me to be the course that gambling is taking in SL? I think status quo indicates the only thing that will change things is if someone decides to document the gambling and bring it to the Feds. That's something I don't want to happen, I don't think anyone wants to happen - because simply it'd be a nightmare having government suits combing through all of SL.

I've drawn no conclusions, or made any claims to have done so. I simply answered a question. Anything else you think you see in my posts is, quite frankly, not there.

I have a poseball that allows me to play doctor, yet I am not a licensed physician! This will undoubtedly bite LL on the ass someday.

Yeah, but at the end of the day,
doctor-play does not affect the person's real world health,
gambling in SL does affect the person's real world wealth.

And I even made it rhyme.

You're clearly not playing doctor in SL correctly.

LOL

I bow to your superior doctor-play!

They shouldn't.

You're wrong

They don't.

Adults have to take responsibility for themselves. Consider the following statements against yours.

SL partnership broke up my marriage.
D/s relationships in SL scarred me psychologically.
I've developed a psychosomatic allergy to rabbits because of SL furries.
I will never start a RL business because of bad experiences in SL.
I spent too much USD on sex balls and escorts in SL.

You get my drift.

I think the more red tape added to SL the better... ffs!

Gambling has been available in online games for a couple of decades at least. Getting someone to trade you virtual gains for real world stuff, including money, has always be possible. There's nothing new happening here...

OTOH, it seems these days it's easier than ever to convert virtual resources to RL resources and back. Is this the new issue? What's the threshhold? At what point do you say, "Okay, in this game, it's too easy to do, so now we have to treat it differently than we've always done before"?

I hear in a bygone era, youngsters were known to race for pink-slips. Was that illegal (even if not done on public roads)? How about kids playing for marbles? Or collector cards?

When I pay to join any competition to win any sort of prize, if I can convert that prize to dollars, is that illegal?

Where is the line? I'm not even sure in RL, much less here...

It shouldn't be illegal, and I'm guessing it probably isn't, but IANAL...

I'm inclined to think it is illegal, SL gambling is too close to general online gaming, which is definitely illegal in the US, to somehow make this form legal. However the law in this case is difficult to enforce, it's below most law enforcements radar, and there is the perceived perspective of 'game'. As such, the gambling house owners can currently get away with it.

Now, whether it should be illegal is a separate issue. I'm a libertarian at heart, so I think is should not be illegal. I also think that the impracticality of enforcement of issues like this in the long run will eventually cause drastic changes in legal systems with the elimination of many laws, even in the real world.

However, in the short term, I think LL is walking a dangerous line. It might become a victim of the future VR moral and legal wars. I fear a bit to wake up one day to find SL dead because of a court order. As such, even if I don't agree with the restrictions philosophically or morally, I wish LL would take a more conservative path.

omfg, you mean there is going to be a mmorpg set in my own city where I can join the Evil Forces and kill Fundies? Are you fucking kidding me I am SO there....

And adults running Second Life (aka Linden Lab) will take responsibility for any legal mess that happens because of the gambling.

You missed my earlier point entirely, quoting a silly rhyme taken out of context - making your argument is a straw man.

What you are saying in this quote is that my argument is "Gambling is bad and LL should ban it".

Meanwhile, what I'm actually saying is something completely different, "Linden Lab should allow users to AR unregulated gambling in an attempt to stave off arguably inevitable legal action against Linden Lab."