Wagering Ban, what does it mean for sex?

I agree, the Providers should have been a little more considerate before dropping the bomb, but then again, gambling was on it's way out since it was banned fron advertising in April. As for Internet Gambling here in the States, of course that is the reason. Uncle Sam and the individual States haven't figured out a way to get their piece of the action, that's obvious.

As for SL being a Game that is readily available World Wide (Be careful calling it a game, some here get their panties bunched up when you do that), true, but it is still owned by LL, a private company and they can do what they want with it.

Q:"Wagering Ban, what does it mean for sex?"

A: It means you can't bet on who'll finish first anymore.

Okay everyone, I think it's time we folded up our "Jump to Conclusions" mats on this subject. Someone's liable to hurt themselves on their sex furniture!

Sorry.....not "game", especially when so many people are making a bunch of money from SL!
Actually apart from the taxation side of online gambling, i heard that it might have been because of the powerful Gambling lobby, who were worried in losing their customer base and ultimately revenues to online gaming sites ... that were part responsible in influencing the U.S Govt to ban the use of these sites. It might also explain why an American citizen cannot use their credit cards even on non- American gaming sites......hence no cash outflow!

To be honest if there were an alternative to SL with similar concepts/ structure but a operating on a more stable platform enviroment.....i would probably cash out and sell all my assets and leave to join that. My single biggest gripe about SL is it's unstableness.......for just about 15 hours i haven't been able to use many of it's basic functionality! I could imagine SL as a "sphere" that has many plasters stuck on it (patch after patch!) It has gotten from bad to worst since first joining SL and all these sanatised policy changes are merely nails in the coffin!

You can call it a game. I still do. *ducks* You are right again. The Online sites would siphon a lot of money from the RL casinos here, no doubt. Personally, online gambling holds no lure to me, but I live in an area where I'm a few hours drive from all kinds of casinos, which I frequent regularly I just wish people would stop propogating the myth that some sort of morality code keeps on line gambling out. Most states allow gambling of some form, be it lottery/casino/animal racing. It's about money, pure and simple.

Actualy they have, its called Income Tax. Every state With income taxs include proceeds from gameing as part of your declarable income.

That and if they want to they can impose licencing and revinue fees on the games mutch like states such as Nevada and Louisana do with real life gameing, (and Nevada currently has laws on the books allowing for the licencing online gameing, its just that almost noone bothers with them for reasons you will soon see) . Currently The Big headake with online gambleing currently given the Second life modle is that where its currently legal in the US the Server AND the software provider AND the person operating the game AND the person playing it bascialy all have to be in the same state(or in the case of someone not in the state, someone who lives in a state where online gambleing is legal for them to participate in.( My understanding of Nevadas law is that any and all software used is subject to inspection AND APROVAL by the state gambleing board, and sutch approval is in itself subject to fees wich are non refundable even when aproval is denied, and any sutch software becomes defacto open source when someone legaly challenges any online gameing licence in a pubic review, and you have to have a fair and full disclosure of the actual odds of winning any given prize.) and that would mean that SLs own software *AND ALL UPDATES* would have to be approved by said board, never mind the current problem with SL in that any given sim can be moved to any given server to deal with any indvidial sim crashing, they would literaly have to creat locked server farms in each State/country that has legal gambleing, keep thoes sims locked in place, and then on top of that Verify that only people who can otherwise leagaly gamble in that Real world location can while blocking out thoes who legaly cant gamble online in that "location"for example I live in Texas, I cant legaly gamble online here but if I move to Nevada for example I can legaly play M:TGO for prizes (unless that has changed recently) (M:TGO got around nevadas law by not providing a ingame mechanism for converting items won in game for real cash. you can buy packs and "tix" but cant sell them. unfortunatly LL goofed slighly in providing a way to convert L$ to cash.

That and a number of states/countries still continue their ban on gambleing and Lottos.

If you're a citizen of the United States living in the United States, your civil liberties are with you all the time. Sitting down at the computer does not suspend your civil liberties.

However, Linden Labs is not the government. It is a corporate entity that deals with consumers through contract and the ordinary course of business.

It's important to remember that both are true. Linden Labs does not infringe upon your right to free speech, for example, when it declines to contract with you to allow you to advertise certain things. That's because the First Amendment of the United States Constitution provides a limitation to government action, not individual action.

However, Linden Labs cannot dodge contractual responsibilities to you, and cannot dodge consumer protection and other laws, merely by calling its services virtual and not real. It is therefore not true that Linden Labs has free reign to do whatever it wants with Second Life. It, like every other corporate entity and every other citizen, is bound by the obligations of contract and the legitimate laws its state and country. If Linden Labs entices you to give it money based on promises of what you may do in Second Life, and then changes its mind on the promise and keeps your money anyway, they may be held civilly accountable.

Well this all powerfull gambleing lobby despite being literaly the largest spending lobby group in Texas last year got exactly nowhere with them. but then it is the Texas legislature. . .

That and they Did get Nevada to set up a process for regulating online gameing, its just that unfortunatly the process ended up being so complicated that literaly noone bothered with it after the fact.

Nevada reqires the software-hardware to be in the state, the software is subject to public review(the same as the software used in their slot machines and "Vidio poker" type machines ) and that the game provider Actualy block people who can not legaly gamble in their online game from their actual location.

here we go again...

The final answer is that the gambling ban has nothing to do with sex. The previously updated "broadly offensive" policy has far more to do with sex than the gambling ban ever will, and from the looks of it, sex will be protected when in properly labeled places once age verification actually comes about.

Amen, Cristalle!

Get OVER it, people! This is another one of those threads that will keep popping up like a bad jack in the box... *sigh*

Yes, you (not your avi) have all of the rights of your home country. Not all here are US citizens. Also I have a few more rights as a citizen of CA. For instance, I could take LL to small claims court for damages I believe I have suffered. As they are also located in CA, my chances of getting a settlement to a successful suit paid are slightly higher.

The questions then are, "Are the TOS that you agreed to being violated, or are they a violation themselves of applicable consumer laws in your RL home area?"

A claim of false advertising could also be contemplated.

A possible channel for Casino operators would be to file a class action tort for lost assets and income for example, or individually use small claims court if the amount they are seeking falls within the limit of the courts authority.

My view exactly.

Income tax is fine for declared income. Once it is assured that online gambling winnings can be tracked and sites regulated for honesty, I'm sure things will change. Good post.