Does Poker actually violate the wagering policy?

The horse track in my town allows bets up to $2.

Personally I think that online gambling should be legal... for wagers under a penny in value.

(I didn't see bingo on that list...)

Bingo balls are drawn randomly, as such they would fall under the ban.

I do agree that bets up to a certian ammount should be exempted under the law (call it a "social gambling" exemption). Quite a few states do have "social gambling" exemptions already, they should do so on the federal level as well.

Could an Indian Tribe run a casino in-game?

According to LL at the current moment? Nope.

According to the law? Undecided. Requires a thesis (its a complicated issue):


Native American Lands are regulated under Federal Law only. State laws only apply to a certian extent. If a state bans something, the Native American Lands in that state have to obey the ban. If a state legalizes something to any degree then Native Americans on reservations can engage in that activity without the state regulations even.

If a state legalizes bingo, and says you can only bet $1 and $1000 is the maximum prize that can be won, then a Native American Reservaiton in that state can offer bingo, but allow any size bet and no maximum jackpot. A state can criminalize something, but a state cannot regulate that activity on Native American lands once they allow it within the state.

Federal Laws would still apply to any Native American reservation. The UIGEA makes it alot more difficult for a US Native American tribe to regulate online gaming in the same way the Kahnawake tribe in Canada has done.

It would not be the most practical solution.

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The most practical solution would be servers located in Costa Rica. As long as no $ physically changes hands in Costa Rica all their online casinos are seen as "Data Processing" and there are no licencing requirements or laws prohibiting it. This is the reason most online casinos are setup in Costa Rica. (Online casinos in Costa Rica take deposits and make payments with payment services located outside Costa Rica, LL's banks are in the UK if I'm not mistaken so they are in compliance).

LL probally wants to get some ID verification in place before they make such a move and they likely decided it was best to pull it now for a few months to see how the UIGEA issue works out (wait for regulations to be issued, and see if UIGEA is overturned in September).

If the new regulations that will come out soon are unkind to LL they are already in compliance, if the new regulations don't address LL they are fairly safe again, if the UIGEA is overturned in September they are even more safe.

This is all really a temporary issue. This whole issue is just too darn confusing at the moment and there is alot of legislation and court actions occuring right now that will clear up some of the muddy water a bit.

Poker is not explicitly covered by the UIGEA. The UIGEA looks to what (1) other federal laws define as unlawful internet gambling, (2) state laws define as unlawful internet gambling when the wagering takes place within the state or tribal lands. The Department of Justice relies almost exclusively on the Wire Act to prosecute internet gambling. Although the DOJ takes the position that the Wire Act covers all forms of internet gambling, the U.S. Courts have ruled that it is limited to sports events and races. Most if not all state anti-gambling statutes exempt gambling where part of the activity takes place overseas. That's not my analysis of the UIGEA btw, it's I. Nelson Rose's, an attorney specializing in U.S. gambling laws in his article The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act Analyzed at http://www.gamblingandthelaw.com/columns/2006_act.htm

I imagine however that since that is the DOJ's position, most site operators, including Linden Labs, and most banks and financial institutions, do not want to undergo the headache, legal expense and business interruption that a DOJ prosecution would bring even if they ultimately prevail in defending their case.

Further since it is probable that at least some if not all banks may block funding to poker site operators, regardless of whether the UIGEA actually covers poker, to minimize their possible exposure to a DOJ action, that effectively puts the burden on the site operators to initiate legal action to compel the banks to unblock funding. Since the UIGEA regulations are supposed to shield the banks from lawsuits that probably means that the site operators would have to sue the government much like the trade association iMEGA is already doing.

iMEGA has filed a lawsuit in New Jersey to have the UIGEA declared unconstitutional and the first hearings are set for early September. Meanwhile gambling businesses are lobbying the federal legislature, a legislature no longer in the grips of the ultra-conservative Republican party which only managed to get the UIGEA passed by tacking it on to the Safe Port Act (no senator or congressman could vote against the UIGEA without voting against the Safe Port Act which would make them appear to be weak on national security issues), to either repeal the UIGEA or have it amended to grant an exemption to online poker. So the final chapter for poker in Second Life may have yet to be written.

Normaly a gambling device is something where the outcome is by more than 50% determined by chance/luck. A skill game can still have a chance element as long as it represents less than 50% of the outcome. Solitare is a great example the deck is random but it requiers skill to play it well.

But we have to live under the conditions the owners of this (RL)world decide and they enjoy flipping the rules 180degrees when it fits us the lessest.

I was always given to understand that the position is, that skill doesn't count as long as it's only in coping with randomness.

In Poker, it's possible to have a hand dealt that ensures you'll win no matter what. Even if another player tries to scare you out of the pot by raising before the flop, that just means that your "perfect deal" involves you holding AA so that you aren't spooked by this. Likewise, it's possible to have a hand dealt that ensures you'll lose no matter what. As long as these two things are the case, the skill is only in managing the consequences of the randomness, which makes the randomness the "lead" of the game. Even if you have no skill, sometimes you will get a perfect deal and win, which means that the game gains the addictive properties of gambling.

Exactly, the results have to be in the long run that elite players almost always win.

holding AA is no guarantee of a win, what if someone has AK suited and ends up with a royal flush?

I did, Mr Clever Dick, which is why I didn't ask if poker was banned under the new anti-gambling rules.

Only if the casino and all the players were on reservation land.

AND if the servers themselves were on reservation land.

Interesting argument. I don't buy it for a second, but it is interesting. As pointed out by someone else, neither of the two assertions are true. Even if they were, they don't generalize. Neither the assertion that it takes no skill to win with one small set of possible hands, nor the assertion that no amount of skill could win with another small set generalizes to the game as a whole.

As I've pointed out in another thead, and others have said differently in this thread, many games combine both skill and luck. The LL policy doesn't deal with this concept explicitly. Legally, somebody, somewhere, on a state-by-state basis makes a judgment call as to whether or not a game is predominately skill or luck. It's possible, in theory, for two states to decide the question differently for specific games. That judgment is based on the game as whole and on typical players, not expert players (though I imagine even these guides to making the judgment could vary from state to state).

Would matter if a Tribe could run an online casino.

If the Federal Government wanted to close a loophole like that,

They would just stage a fake "vote" and sell itself the land for its 1880's value.

I am not a lawyer but a recent case in UK law came before the Courts relating to poker and the Court decided it was more a game of luck than skill.

However, another possibility is the card game Bridge. In this game, skill is considered to be much more relavent than luck imho

I Nelson Rose is mostly correct, but he's also severely biased in his analysis, and it's helpful to recognize that. He represents gaming interests and gets paid to take the position he takes. I assume that the majority of your analysis was his, not yours, so I'm sort of directing this response at him. He's correct in that the UIGEA does not target poker specifically. It does not target any type of gambling other than "illegal gambling", so to the extent that I said "poker falls under the UIGEA", I was not technically correct. The UIGEA limits transfers of funds to sites which allow "illegal gambling", then allows individual states to determine what illegal gambling is. Most states do not explicitly allow internet gambling. In fact, most states are either silent on the issue, or their gambling laws are too outdated to account for the internet. The law moves at the speed of a runaway glacier. The internet has been widely used for less than 15 years - that's not enough time for any legitimate body of law to develop. Where states do take notice of internet gaming, they tend to make it illegal. The worst is Washington State, which has made it a felony, and that law does include poker. There are, as I recall, 14 states which have specifically banned internet gaming.

There's a danger in blaming an "ultra-conservative congress". I'm no conservative, but it's not only conservatives that have endorsed a ban on internet gaming. The Washington law was introduced by a very liberal democrat who took campaign money from brick and mortar casinos (wonder what her incentive was to introduce the law?). Hillary Clinton has been named as someone who does not support internet gaming, as has Dianne Feinstein. Several other liberal congresspeople have come out against internet gaming on the premise that they must protect people from themselves and because Harrah's makes huge donations to political causes). Just because Barney Frank is on our side doesn't mean this is a liberal v. conservative issue. The conservatives like Frist certainly did the most damage, but it's not safe to relax now that they are not in power any more. Your best bet as near as I can tell is Obama, but it's questionable whether he will be a viable candidate. It's not like internet gaming is an issue that wins or loses elections.

I see all these arguments here about various american legalities. Surely this is simple:-

Linden Lab own SecondLife
Linden Lab say that Wagering (Gambling) is not permitted

To me it's clear cut, it's obvious that Poker, Sploders, *ingo and all other games where a wager is made are no longer allowed. There is no argument.

Gambling is a vice not merely because it distributes money based on a random factor. Gambling is a vice because of the legends of men wagering away the family home, gunfights over cheating disputes, and the smoking, alcohol, and prostitution that went with gambling at the saloons and mining camps. Anti-gambling laws were born out of the gambling legends. And Second Life's policy is based on the gambling laws (as in, avoiding liability under the gambling laws).

To the legendary gambler, poker is the game of choice. No gambling ban could be complete without it.

Now, when it comes time to write a coherent law or policy, one has to define what it is one is regulating. So you want to outlaw Poker to get rid of the gunfights and homeless families, but you don't want to affect granny playing Bingo. What is the determining factor that makes Poker a vice, and Bingo wholesome? Myth and legend. So it becomes difficult to objectively define what it is that one is trying to outlaw, what what one is trying to outlaw is not objectively determined.

Typically, in construing a law or regulation, specific terms guide general terms. The inclusion of Poker on the list of examples guides the meaning of "rely," if more than one meaning of "rely" exists. If Poker is an example of one of the games that "rely on chance," then the regulation must intend a very loose definition of "rely." In this context, something can be said to "rely on chance" if the element of chance cannot be extracted from the endeavor. Very few games, and very little in life, can be excluded from this very broad definition.

You can still bet on chess and checkers.

The amount of skill vs. chance involved in Poker depends on the variant, the betting rules, and the number of rounds. One game of five-card draw poker is governed more by luck than skill. The multi-day Texas Hold 'Em tournaments that are televised are governed more by skill than luck.

well yes, but, those elite players need luck to beat each other.

You should put your previous post ("Which Part of 'wagering' do You not Understand?" into context Chas. You implied the poster should have stopped reading past the word "wager" before deciding whether Poker was banned or not. Aside from the fact that Poker's explicitly on the list, any game that involves wagering is not specifically banned unless it meets other criteria. The OP was right to ask for clarification as to why Poker was on the list but didn't seem to meet the "wager/chance" criteria.

If you post a smug/incorrect reply, you should expect someone to post one right back at you

Pi.