Am I in the wrong here?

Then why did you ask the question...yes, you are wrong and you should pay her in full. I dont blame her for being upset.

While I agree that paying the jackpot amount is the right thing to do, and that forgetting the machine was there is regrettable but no excuse, I think that getting the money with a credit card or via selling some RL item is a little out there. If this guy is hurting for cash and is broke until next payday, then his first priority should be RL living expenses, not casino winnings in a video game. Use a credit card to buy groceries and such if you must use it at all, but *not* to pay off the winner. I'm sure I'll be thought of as foolish for feeling that way, but IMHO, food and utilities in the real world are more important than paying a jackpot, and the winning player needs to chill out and realize that. Better to pay her off in installments. I just can't see putting yourself further in debt in RL to pay this off... I mean, this is a GAME.

If you have any concious you wouldn't have slept until you did the right thing anyways.

Now you can get some sleep knowing you did the right thing

P.S. - and i really do hope you reached out and accepted full responsibility for the whole incident, regardless of how she reacted afterward. Her reaction was understandable given the position you put her in.

So you think you shouldn't have to pay up because of either

#1 Your own failure to realize you had the machine out there, or
#2 Because she's upset that you aren't honoring your side of the deal she made when she put money in the machine.

I'd be upset too. And I think the people that are really going to be upset with this thread are the legit casino owners who you're tarnishing. (Perhaps they will loan you the Ls to cover this bet, or sell them some machines at cut rates, this is YOUR loss to swallow)

YOU Blew it, don't lay the blame on the victim here.

Offer to pay them their winnings in installments if nothing else, but I recommend you DO pay them, I mean it's not their fault you couldn't cover the bet.

She threatened to say bad things about you, or file an AR because you stole from her.... I don't understand why that would piss you off. That's what AR's are for. You promised "if you pay this machine money you can win this jackpot" she paid the money, won the jackpot and you didnt' follow through with your 1/2 of the bargain. You stole from her, she shoudl have filed an AR.

I didn't bother reading a lot of the replies, so excuse me if I repeat something that someone else already stated.

I think as a 'business' owner, one should keep up with what stores, or in this case, what gambling machines are out there. I think because it was a failure on your part to remove the machine, that it was your responsibility to pay the person in question.

I think, and this is hindsight advice since the crap already hit the fan, that you should have offered to pay her when you get did get the money, and explain to her the situation. Any reasonable adult would be (pissed, granted) but they would have accepted it as long as you gave them a date, and perhaps whatever you could give them in the meantime.

I can see the situation from both sides. Btw, how much money did she win? $20 worth? As a "Business" owner myself, I understand your position. As a member of SL (That has a tendancy to waste money in casinos) I see her position. You *should* pay her, however, since she is acting like a twit, I'm not sure what to tell you.

I think that you should probably pay her, in full, -when you can-, and then send her a VERY nasty worded PM about her attitude, her friends' attitude, and tell her that you're ONLY paying her to amend your guilty conscious (which was becoming not so guilty after the harassment).

I would then abuse report her and her friends for the stalking and harassment they gave you, even if you were due for it. In other words, if they wanted action taken, they shouldn't have taken 'the law' into their own hands.

She threatened me while I was trying to work with her to resolve the situation. I dunno about you, but I consider that disrespectful.

L$ = $US

Money is not a game. He owed a gambling debt. Gambling debt is something you bring on yourself. It's not bad luck. It's not "I have medical bills". It's not "My car broke down." This isn't a case of a bad investment or my kid is sick. He made a promis to cover the winnings of his machine the second it was put out to take money.

As soon as he knew he couldn't cover it he needed to make arrangments to pay the chick off with interest and kiss her ass until she's happy. If shes cool with waiting till payday then good for her. He can either be a dick ass and not pay her or start liqudating.

It turns out he paid his dept like a man. Good for him. Now he needs to delete his machines.

If he can't keep up with his expenses then he needs to sell some shit. Starting with his computer and TV if he has one. People value their stuff more than their integrity. That why the average credit card debt in the US is like $9k.

Negative.

Integrity is not a game. Money is not a game. No matter what you want to call Second Life, we're talking about real money with real value. I don't care if I have mesh or have flesh, my integrity is important to me. I should hope the same is true for others.

The fact that you were acting like there was a dispute was what was making her angry. There should have been no dispute, or a need to "work with her". She paid money into the slot, hit the jackpot, you owe her 100% of what that was suppossed to be payed to her immediatly.

Ok first off, SL IS JUST A GAME. You can try justifying it being a "platform" all you like and if your justification is that things have a real world value then I'm afraid to tell you that you are WRONG.

I've seen dozens of MMOG's where people made RL cash off of: Everquest, Everquest2, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, Ragnarok Online, Phantasy Star Online, the list goes on. If someone holds value to something in a game then it can be sold for money whether it be the game's currency, some item, or in SL's case some land. The moment someone starts making RL cash in a game does that make it more then just a game? No it doesn't. Only difference between SL and other MMOGs is that SL encourages the exchange of RL money for stuff in SL and offers the tools to do it.

My RL problems take priority over any game kiddies, sorry to burst your little bubbles. I'm not gonna bend over backwards and adhear to RL laws that don't apply in a game just so some unreasonable b!tch who won't work with me so I can pay her can get her funny money.

In other words, beware anything that has your AV's name attached to it. Thanks for the tip and outing yourself.

kthxbye

Wow. Way to act like a creep.

Whatever makes you sleep better at night, man.

If you truly felt that way, though, you would have had no compunctions about cheating this person, you wouldn't have started the thread and you wouldn't have paid her.

I was pondering how exactly to respond to this insanity, but this is just perfect and I'll leave it at that.

I will say one thing.

You absolutely need to pay the money, and in game you should definetly sell off land/objects/etc if you need to do make ends meet.

But I do *not* condone putting oneself in hock IRL over this. "Sell your television"? "Get a loan from the bank"? Nuh-uh.

Seriously. Priorities people. RL comes first. Always.

I tend to agree with the ideas that RL priorities take precidence over SL priorities.

However, if it doesn't sit well with you to be considered a dishonorable jerk in-game, then paying the woman was/is the best course of action.

Keep in mind: You're not doing this woman a favor by paying her - you are simply honoring a contract between you & her. You signed it when you placed your machine out, and she signed it when she placed her Lindens into your machine.

Whether she was abusive with you or not does not change the terms of the above agreement. Although it does seperately create a possible Abuse Report situation that you could file against her.

Pay her the money you owe her.

Briana Dawson

I really can't accept the "it's just a game" excuse. I, and many others, reap significant RL rewards from SL. I pay a lot of my bills thanks to the relationship between myself and my customers. My integrity is critical to the continuation of that relationship. It's the same for everyone else who transacts business here.

You can't have it both ways. You can't enjoy RL benefits from SL without also paying RL consequences if you screw people.

And there you have it: I don't exchange lindens in either direction.

I recommend, that in the future, you may wish to avoid posting questions if getting answers you dislike will upset you.

Here's an analogy: suppose you don't like losing money to slot machines that may not payout in accordance with their stated payouts, then perhaps you shouldn't play slot machines, especially if you will become irritated if the machine doesn't payout like you expect it to. Does that make it a little more clear?

Fair enough. But I betcha casino people do.

My money has only gone one way, in never out. I had my casino/club for fun, not profit. Things stopped becoming fun so I closed down a month ago and moved on.

Forgive my skepticism. You ran a gambling operation without ever cashing out? Come on, now.

Doesn't change the issue of integrity, in any case. My integrity is important to me in any medium. You can't justify screwing someone just because you can't see their face.

It wasn't a big operation, it was rather small. A machine here, a machine there. Not exactly a Vegas setup. Plus club events got rather costly at the height of the money chair boom. I made more L attending other people's events and playing SLingo/Blood21 at Gothliga's then at my establishment and that still went to event costs and payroll for my employees.

THATS BOLONEY!!





If you did not start no SH*T it wouldn't be no SH*T!!

She wouldn't make threats if you would have paid her in the first place, We don't want to hear about your financial problems, save it for someone who cares. You should have thought about that before you would have dropped a casino machine, and "No one went to that location" that is just a bullsh*t excuse, guess what????

SHE WENT! SHE WON!! YOU PAID HER.... Now get over it, Get used to it, or deal with it.

- Wuv