Current Thoughts and Solutions to new ban.

My solution?

Find something else to enjoy and pass the time with. Lord knows SL (just like RL) has millions of things to see and do.

We don't need casinos to enjoy life.

I mean this in the most positive way possible.

The gamblers dont have enough money left over to lobby congress.

I understand what your saying. I agree no govenment is perfect and i am not yank bashing. I just think as many choices as possible should be left to the individual. Not allowing gambleing will not stop it, it just drives it underground and the casinos and bookmakers etc can not be regulated. Also the country looses out on a lot of tax.

Take prohibition as an example, it just did not work.

If people want to drink, take drugs and gamble let them. Its not like there is no one telling us the risks. That goes for all countries not just usa

Fine. You tell me a business model for online gambling which doesn't involve a credit card, or any organisation taht accepts credit card payments, and we can both get rich.

im actually not looking to replace gambling so to say.. im looking to give meaning to playing certain games.. games like slingo, tringo, and mabey games we once knew and played as casino games.

sure we can have these games.. and they can do nothing but play.. but i feel that it would feel empty and not fun at all without a goal.

the machines CAN be profitable because they take in money. and not give out money..

the items available can be normal sale items.. but to make it more popular the game room should have several items that are exclusive. which would make the goal more desired. the goal being winning that exclusive item.

its like those damn stacker games.. that offer the winnings of a Wii.. or iPhone.. knowing the goal is hard.. but people still attempt to play because they have the ability to get the big money items for a low price.

These are all the same solution. Each of them involves giving the player something they can exchange for money or things. The new policy bans games of chance that give money or a "thing of value". Tokens or tickets that can be exchanged for something of value are themselves things of value. For this to work according to the new policy, the prizes involved would have to essentially be freebies. If the game was free to play, the player could earn point, tickets, or tokens that could be exchanged for non freebie items, but as long as the player is paying, they can't get ANYTHING of value. The real way around the new policy is to get LL to define what counts as a game of skill and what counts as a game of chance. In a game of Tringo, all players are seeing the same pieces at the same time. The outcome of Tringo is entirely decided on the players decisions. It shouldn't be too hard to get LL to agree that Tringo is skill based. In games like High-5 and Greedy Greedy, the outcome is still entirely player-decision based, but the random number aspect is there too. I think these games should be allowed as games of skill, but we need an official LL ruling. I've heard from someone in the RL gambling industry that RL Slingo is classified as a game of skill instead of chance, but I don't have the documentation to back that up. There are some games that are obviously all chance, and some that are obviously all skill, but many of the popular SL games are somewhere in between. Until we get a game-by-game ruling from LL, running any game for money is putting your account at risk.

I can't say that i'm happy that SL is quickly turning into RL with inferior graphics. But i don't understand all this angst about how avs can get rid of all those extra lindens weighing them down. As i read the blog entry, illegal gambling requires three elements: a wager input, a game of chance or the outcome of a rl event, and a potential payout. Replace the game of chance or outcome of a rl event with a game of skill or the outcome of an inworld event and its no longer illegal gambling. So sl looses slingo and slots and gains competative tic-tac-toe and av boxing (as examples). avs can still win or lose fortunes overnight and now there is a whole bunch of new business niches that need to be filled. What am i missing here?

Slingo is a game of chance... why? because Slingo is a combo of 2 words based on the games they represent. Slot and Bingo. The Slot Reels Spin on the bottom and reveil Random assignment of numbers. then the player uses these numbers to create as many bingos as possible. Slingo is as much of a skill game as blackjack and poker.

Thing of value is assigned to stop people from going the route of my number 2 and 3 choice. Basicly giving a set L$ value to a object which would be bought back by the casino owner or someone in the same buisness.

where as when i mentioned token payout.. the token has no L$ value. it is used as redemption for prizes not L$. Lindens do indeed have a value .. they had value the moment people decided to change lindens for money.

I think you should focus on eliminating #3. That's the ticket! If you can eliminate #2 as well? GRAAAAVY TRAAAAAIIN!!!

No offense, but what kind of prize can you possible offer someone to get them to plop down 10 or 20K $L or more for a chance to win? Land maybe, but nothing else.

It's no longer easy money for the Casino owner. As long as you could get players to your casino, you should not lose money. A game of chance is designed with odds that always favor the house/owner of the game. Games of skill that give you a reward/payout mean that the house no longer always holds the better odds. The casino now experiences the risk of actually losing money if players get skilled enough to win.

What about a game like this: you hold a marathon/obstacle course race in your sim. Only 30 people can run at a time. Each one pays an "entrance fee" of $10 Lindens. The winner of the race wins $L200. The race promoter/owner keeps $L100. Is that gambling?

If you designed a game where players would compete against each other instead of the house and have to pay an entrance fee, then the winner takes most of the pot and the house takes a fee, like Greedy Greedy does.

I'd love to see what the ruling is on Greedy Greedy.

Slap some number jerseys on the runners and let the organizer make book on the outcome .... lindens change hands, some people have lots of fun, some less and it doesn't seem to be illegal gambling according to the blog post. Seems like a great idea to me. The fact that the organizers have to understand handicapping and have to work harder than the old casino owners to turn a profit just makes things more interesting

Here's my option:
Allow everyone free chips, tokens, tickets, or whatever to play a certain game. Lets say poker. 8 people sit around a table everyone is given a predetermined amount of chips. It would have to be a tournament mode game. If you play and lose you have the option to pay the person who wins. That way if 5 out of 8 people actually give you the money it isn't gambling it is givin as a gift. And for those who don't pay after losing you will not be played with again because no one will like you. Put on a ban list?

Just trying an idea let me know what you think.

The problem with Greedy Greedy and that kind of thing is that it isn't a pure skill game.

Imagine you were going to play Greedy Greedy but you could choose what numbers came up on the the dice. In that case you would just choose to roll all 6's every time and you would always win, with no skill needed. That means that the game is based on randomness, because it is only randomness that keeps that from happening. There is skill in dealing with the randomness, but it's basically randomness at the top level. It's the same as games like Tringo - there's skill involved in using the grid space as best you can, but the randomness still wins out because without that you could just get an ideal sequence of pieces for which the grid usage would be obvious. Even with Poker, there is a lot of skill in Poker but if you were to step up to the table and get a Royal Flush on every hand all the skills of the other players wouldn't matter a bit.

The only solution would be something like this: all the games are freeplay. But you have to pay to get into the facility. Therefore, there is no consideration for the actual playing of the game. You pay for the pleasure of entering the premises. It's similar to escorts irl - you technically pay for the pleasure of their company, but whatever happens is between consenting adults... or so they say.

I admit that I'm still a noob to Sl compared to almost everyone here, but I'm no noob to internet gamig. I've played poker online for years now, and I've followed the online gaming issue closely on the forums dedicated to online gaming like twoplustwo.com and pocketfives.com. Don't think nothing is going on from our end on trying to fight these laws. Plenty of people play for their primary income, and they don't want to lose their jobs. There are several bills in Congress right now which, if successful would change or repeal the UIGEA. As for LL, I doubt they care whether people gamble in Sl or not. They care about their butts being thrown in jail by the State Dept. Can't blame them. Paypal got busted a couple years back and now you can't move money directly from Paypal to a gambling site. The Neteller founders wound up in jail, as did an executive with BetOn (a sports book). The State Dept has tried to subpoena records from foreign banks with no physical presence in the US, and let's not forget that we are facing millions in trade sanctions over a case we lost in the world court against Aruba for failing to honor our World Trade Agreement treaty obligations.

At any rate - here's my proposed solution, at least as far as poker is concerned. As near as I can tell, running a poker tournament is legal if there is no buy-in. If I wanted to give away 10,000L for free, I could run a tourney with a 10k prize pool and invite my friends to play. As long as they don't post a wager there's no problem. So, run a club with a membership fee. Everyone pays XL$ per month. The club hosts a free poker tournament once a week and puts X(number of paid members)-(rake)/4 into the prize pool. The winners get their prizes, but they didn't wager anything. All they did was pay dues to be a member of a club. In fact, they don't even have to show up and play if they don't want. So you have a club with 50 members who pay 1000L per month. that's 50,000L. The club runs 4 tourneys with 11,000L prize pools and keeps 6,000L to pay for operations - maybe put the owner on a salary or something. I don't know whether that would work or not, but someone smarted than I could probably work out the details.

1 to 10 L bets.. or more.. depending on point payout.. guarenteed points everytime you play.. if you have a nice item for say 1000 points.. and have the chance to win up to 100 points per play.. why not?

If what I heard about Slingo being defined as a skill game by the RL authorities is true, then your opinion on it doesn't matter. The truth is that it has BOTH random AND skill based components. It's in a grey area that LL has not addressed yet.

The token payouts that you describe are a "thing of value" because you can exchange them for products. It doesn't matter if you claim that they have no $L value, if you can exchange them for something that has a value, then the tokens have value also. If you are exchanging them for something that is valueless, you lose the point of trying to get them.

This idea has some validity to it.

Think about carnivals, they have games and give away tickets that you exchange for prizes.

Of course most carnival games rely on skill, though they are rigged, so that it isn't really random like a casino game.

Hmm..

I would love to see skill games where the participants wager against each other. It could be as simple as tic-tac-toe or checkers, or something more elaborate. Once upon a time I was considering a tank game, players pay $xx L to get a tank, the players then get 3/4 $xx L for each player they shoot. Anyone who is shot, has to buy a new tank. The owner of the game gets 25%, the players get to play a cool game that has a chance to earn them money. I do not think this would be against the new rules.

I've Posted in a few other Threads on this subject, and My answer will go well here to.

from LL's own Policy Statement:


The Ban Effects Games of Chance Based upon random number generation (Eliminating Card games Dice, Sploders lotteries Etc.) and Wagers on RL events (Such as Booking bets on Football, or Off Track race betting). What is NOT banned are any Games that rely on a players SKILL rather than their luck.
A Simple example would be a game that Charges $L10 to Play, and asks trivia Questions. Three correct answers out of Three pays Double money back, OR Gives an Object as a Prize. Contests in the real World have relied on the "Skill testing Question" as requirement to Claim a Prize for Decades as a device to Alter a game of Chance into a Game of Skill and therefore bring it into line with State and Federal Gaming Laws.
Creators of gambling macines can continue in business as long as the games Played are Won or lost ONLY by the Players Ability.

There is room here for some Cheeky individual to point out Casinos would see a Bigger profit from games relying on the players Intelligence, rather than their Luck, But i will leave that to somebody else.

Angel.

What if you do away with the random number generator, and instead a slot machine scriptor (for example) pre-programs which of 100,000 bets will lose and which will win, and how much? He could then guarantee the casino owner an income level, and he could guarantee customers the incidence of winning. Every so often the script could be patched with a new pre-ordained schedule of winning.

I suspect that if the people making money from gambling had reported their earnings this wouldn't be an issue. As always, everyone has to suffer from the actions of the criminal few.

This is an excellent idea and i have been thinking along these lines myself, i dont know what chuck. E cheese is but at the video arcades in my city we have something similar, you play fun games and get tokens for your efforts even if you dont do very well.

In fact this already exists in SL, i think the place is called insert coin arcade and it works exactly how you have described. NO gambling involved at all!!

You could have high ticket prizes such as land, or rentals in exclusive sims, casinos are now called arcades and will partner up with SL's top desiners and gice away there goods.


Or maybe the designers will take advantage of the situation, imagine how much traffic you could get with a freeplay zyngo machine thats gives out a $1000L valued skin on a daily basis.

I myself am about to realease a low prim, skill based game that will allow designers to do just what i have described.


Keep your eyes on the new products section!!!!

this is also a good idea but one major problem would arise,

imagine how easy it would be to get involved in match-fixing, the bookies would have a field day.