secondlife casino owners: you could get charged for rackeetering

other internet casino owners are:

http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/17/technology/betonsports.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes

Nah.

SL states that Lindens aren't worth anything. We could argue about that all day, but it depends on what the courts say. Only time will tell!

are you kidding???

People are sucking out a lot of money into paypal on the basis of gambling in SecondLife.

The government just made it ABUNDANTLY clear that you are not allowed to host casinos over the internet.

This is exactly how they send messages ... they do high profile arrests so that the little guy gets the message.

Trust me - this is NOW illegal.

Oh give it a break. What matters is what people put in their bank accounts.

Sure, people who don't withdraw money are probably ok, but if you deposit money in a bank account and someone can source that back to an internet casino game, you are comitting racketeering.

Christ, what does the govnerment have to do, drive up to your front door and nail a proclamation on your forehead?

This is the front page of CNN. They are SENDING a message.

Wouldn't they contact LL for supporting it or whatever first?

Oh, I'm sure they will supoena the HELL out of LL!

but, LL can make the argument they are an ASP.

Anyways, I'm willing to make you a 100 L$ bet that LL makes an announcement on this in the next couple of weeks, perhaps tomorrow.

I better go to the Casino Quick.

I'll take you up on that.... If on/by August 1, 2006 they do not announce something that has to do with betting or casino regulations, you owe me L$100. I they do, I owe you L$100, how does that sound?

What?? What? Were you all saying something? I can't hear you over the cha-chings of the slot machine I'm playing while relaxing in this comfy camping chair.

Ok, lets do an over/under parlay 2 to 1 exacta trifecta.

Done and done. Somehow, I doubt Philip wants to get brought up on racketeering charges.

The problem is you people think this is business as usual. It's not. The government has got their ducks in a row and has made a federal decision to start to prosecute internet casino owners.

Probably 95% of all casino owners in SL aren't making that much. But I happen to know a couple that are making enough to be considered serious.

The problem is you assume that those prosecutions actually mean something. 99% of the casino operations on the internet are headquartered in other contries, where US law means diddly-squat, particularly with regard to gambling operations. In addition, although a recent bill was voted on and passed with regards to freezing the accounts of banks that receive money from casino operations, it still has to go to the senate, and the bill is not projected to even be voted on. Not that it matters; it doesn't say anything about using an intermediary, such as paypal, or any such service to transfer the funds via a 3rd party.

L$ is not recognized as a currency in any part of the world. Although it's possible that individual L$ history is tracked over a period of time, I doubt it. It would be absolutely futile to attempt any sort of prosecution based on gambling charges against Linden Labs, for the reason that gambling with fake money is not illegal. Although it's POSSIBLE that their is a law prohibiting the cashing out of the money winnings, as part of racketteering, since individual L$ is probably impossible to track (unlike USD, which has serial numbers), L$ would be incredibly easy to launder. And I'm not even sure there is any law preventing that really, with regards to internet gambling. All the casino operater would have to do is go trade L$ with a friend, and voila, instant clean L$ to be cashed out on the lindex.

edit - I'll add a little more to my two cents. Bonus! Reading the linked story, the story doesn't give any indication on what the actual charges brought against the guy are. It' very probably that most, if not all of them, were for things other than 'internet gambling'. Most likely the charges were for fraud of some kind. It's very likely that the other 'internet gambling sites' that were charged actually were involved in some pretty shady stuff.

INTERSTATE racketeering, at that - federal rap.

Just my L$0.02 worth here, since I know nothing about US law when it comes to this sort of thing.

You could argue (as could I) that if I'm based in Europe, this won't affect me. Well, half right maybe... I couldn't be prosecuted since I'd be doing nothing illegal in my country... BUT, it's very possible that LL could make my casino disappear since it would be hosted on US soil... in LLs servers indeed.

Now this is hypothetical, I don't gamble, let alone run a casino... this is just another random thought to consider.

In any case, good luck (to the ones who run fair operations) and muahahaha you'll get what you deserve (to those who don't).

Sio

It doesnt matter how Linden Dollars are obtained because they are not recognized by any government as having any value whatsoever ... Just because someone values the linden dollar does not mean it has any legal standing as a currency. Therefore, any transaction made in L$ is not monitary.

Let's not kid ourselves either. At a rl casino, you gamble with chips instead of dollars, and I don't think anyone would seriously claim those are real money either, but equally, no one would deny that it's real gambling. Fundamentally, there isn't a whole lot of difference between a L$ and a rl casino chip.



Linden dollars are exactly as traceable as real dollars that are traded electronically. neither has serial numbers. But BOTH have data trails that can be investigated by relevant authorities. Simply trading the money over to a friend or alt won't necessarily clean the money.

The story about the BetonSports guy is on the Beeb site today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5189906.stm





Of interest in the article is the fact that Mr Carruthers has been a resident in Puerto Rico since 2000. That would seem to imply that they're going after anyone anywhere, but only seem to be able to arrest them if and when they set foot on sovreign US territory.

For all non US based residents, we will be able to bypass the laws applied in the USA for US citizens, provided that LL is not forced/chooses to close down gambling operations, by refusing to take bets from USA citizens.

In the same way that adult sites on the internet have a disclaimer which informs of an adult site and requires the user to confirm their age and legality in using the site, we will find RL internet gambling sites doing the same, sure it will hit revenues, but just because US citizens are breaking the law, doesn't mean the rest of the world is a puppy.

Provided LL do not remove gambling, which I wouldn't speculate on either way, I would have no concerns running a gambling area, by making gamblers make a positive affirmation that they are not breaking the law in their own country.

This positive affirtmation can be acheived by making a notecard pop up, with the disclaimer, the affirmation of legality is by the gambler placing a bet. The liability therefore transfers to the gambler and away from the person offering gambling as a service, for citizens of any country where gambling is legal.

Apparantly it will soon be legal to set up internet gambling businesses in the UK. It's mentioned towards the end of the following article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5030486.stm

Linden Dollars differ from casino chips in one major way. Casino chips are considered a representative of value that are redeemable for some other item of value(cash, prizes, etc.) from the issuer.

Even though Linden Lab will soon begin selling Linden Dollars through LindeX there is no redeemable value. Linden Lab does not purchase Linden Dollars or redeem them for anything that that can be considered valuable in a legal sense. Linden Dollars cannot be considered a representative of value because the only value they hold is to other individuals.

Until Philip's annoucment, Linden Dollars were esentially free promotional tokens. Now, they are still intruduced for free but Linden Lab resells a portion of those tokens returned to them through various means. They are still unredeemable by the issuer(Linden Lab) and represent no actual value.

A counterpoint is of course that the only thing that makes a real currency valuable is that other individuals value them. They don't have any redeemable value from the issuer in these non-gold-backed-currency days either. In that sense, the only thing that makes L$ not a "currency" is that LL is not a government. But in the past, there are many many examples of valid currencies being issued by bodies that weren't considered governments of the appointed representatives of a government.

I'm not going to pursue this argument though, because it would lead in a direction that I don't want to see come to fruition.

you are correct. but LL at one time did take L$ as payment for Auctions of land. not sure if that has any bearing on this or not but they did once take L$ in place of Real US$

At the time they took payment of L$ in place of real USD, the Linden Dollar was not sold by Linden Lab. The transfer must be going both ways during the same time period in order for it to be considered a representative of value.

At the time Linden Lab accepting Linden Dollars in place of real USD it was more like sending in cereal box labels for Special Action Chop GI Joe. It's legal when there is no cost to aquire the token. This is why promotional game rules state that there is no purchase nessasary to win. Anyone can collect bottle caps and send them in for the prize.

Even now Linden Lab does not sell Linden dolars exclusivly and still awards them freely to users, so that requirement is also still met.

You are right to say that USD have no redeemable value from the government, but they are considered legal tender. That is, they are accepted payment for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.