Do you want casinos gone?

Ok a little pole after the blog post so lets see how menny of us want them to stay and how menny want them to go?

a good cull might be nice. if it's anything like the club scene there's probably lots of casinos that are empty most of the time!


but other than that, no. I think SL should stay free & open to people creating whatever they want.

It was amusing at first but Xebian -

The word is POLL

not Pole, youv'e been already corrected a few times by a few different posters

Just look up and to the left on this very page it says POLL very clearly

YES!

especially if theyre on a sim negatively impacting others. for example, Boucher Casino in the Hauwai sim is on a 4480 lot and has 20 camping chairs! these camping chairs are always full and the casino always takes up the 35-40 allowed in the whole sim. so the sim is full most ofthe time and no one can ever get in it. this person must have a lot of nerve to set up a casino on a 4480 lot and put 20 camping chairs in it. she must think she owns the sim!

Ok im sorry i am dislexic prob spelt that rond also hehe but thanks for pointing that out.

define casino for me please?

im still curious if things like slingo...greedy...tringo..pizza...and friendly card games at your house is going to be affected by all of this

This specific case is one where similar occurances in the past led to Abuse Reports being acted upon by LL.

I don't want them gone, just zoned correctly and regulated would be fine.



Obviously the plan here is to either make money by selling a casino that seems more popular than it is, in which case any one even considering buying it would have to be put off by the fact they can't enter the sim to look at it.
Or they want to force all other esidents out and buy the rest of the sim at cheap prices.
Or can someone please explain to me how you can make money on a lot by lots of gambling machines sitting idle with no actual players.

Maybe they are locked out of their own land because the sim is always full, and so they can't go back and remove the chairs...

Camping and "Casino" should be considered two diff. things - Camping is the casinos way to try to attract people to gamble but only negatively effects everyone around them. If Casinos had to get rid of camping chairs then they wouldnt be so bad.

Im not really against casinos but I think a couple things could be done:

1 - Remove all casinos from PG sims.
2 - Put a limit in the amount of people per sqm or something that prevents other land owners from access to their own parcels becose of a filled sim.

LOL yes would be funny, like when we had an event once and the danceclub was so full the owner had to walk in

You could cut an paste. hehe

None of the above. This is not a black and white issue.

The casinos would not be a problem for so many if it were not for the resources that they consume. These are problems LL refuses to deal with but instead hides behind the whitewash of community standards. Let's realistically look at why casinos are more than likely a problem for most:

1. Some are not very aesthetic as the prims go into the machines.

2. They suck up land resources and cause lag.

3. They have the potential to fill a sim with many people (despite being small land owners on a sim) and prevent residents who live on the sim from visiting their own homes.

We cannot judge. If someone wants to spend their money on SL gambling, who are we to deny them. Etc. etc. Freedom of choice and all that.

All LL really has to do is make a few policy changes where casinos are welcome yet regulated (i.e. if they own 20% of a sim, they are capped at 20% of the number of people possible for that sim). Better yet, designate sim regions for casino use.

In the end, I don't want them gone, but I'd like to see some logical regulations in place that address the true issues. It's none of our business if the casino owners are making $10 or $10,000 -- that's between them and their government revenue agency.

My final two cents on the matter.

Lucrezia

Hey you people wanting regulation and zoning--you might consider getting some land on a private island. It shouldn't be too hard to find one with the rules and regulations that fit your preferences. As an added bonus, you don't have to be a premium member to hold land on a private sim.

The reasons we see casinos on the Mainland is just because that's where there aren't such restrictions and zoning regulations.

When we mean regulation we mean control over the machines somehow that doesn't allow owners to skew the odds, how do you feel using a machine if you find out it's scripted to never payout on any bet over your average betting figure?

I have mixed feelings about casinos. I have met some casino operators (Moonshine and Starshine Herbst to be precise) who are pleasant, generous and charming young people who go out of their way to put that 'something special' into SL. I have also had the misfortune to cross swords with other casino operators who shouldn't be let loose on the world, let alone the internet.

Some casinos are well-built and are an aesthetic pleasure to behold. Others are so awful their creators should first be frog-marched to the Ivory Tower of Primitives and then force-fed a crash course in architectural aesthetics.

As with so many things both in RL and SL, it's down to the people involved. And that's something that's very difficult to regulate. Ultimately punters will vote with their wallets which should bode well for the better casinos and, hopefully, put the land-blight shoebox camp-chair casinos out of their misery in short order.

Restrict camp chairs and casinos won't be the drain they are currently (the ones that are using them I mean). The good ones will still attract visitors by virtue of being good, the black boxes will fade away as people no longer have the single reason they had for visiting in the first place: the camp chairs. It isn't casinos people should be against, its anything that employs excessive use of camp chairs whether it be a casino, a club, a mall or a sewing circle! (actually the last one would be funny to see...)

so youre answer is everyone leave each mainland sim to a 4480 sqm resource hogging casino with 20 camping chairs filling up an entire sim and avatar limits so no one else can get in it, because they dont meet covenant regulations on private islands?

how about why dont casino owners buy their own sim since it is they who have a business that unfortunately needs and uses up all of the resources of a whole sim?

its all about being considerate of others its not rocket science you know

Will be interesting to see what comes of the FBI's probe:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17950149/

Interestingly...

"Most lawyers agree that placing bets with Linden dollars likely violates U.S. anti-gambling statutes, which cover circumstances in which “something of value” is wagered. But the degree of Linden Lab’s responsibility, and the likelihood of a any crackdown, is uncertain."

Anyone seen any men-in-black type avatars looking clumsy? hehe.

If we must have gambling in SL then it should be regulated properly. The same legislation covering RL gambling should be applicable to gambling in SL.

I don’t understand the excessive need for the machines personally. In the casino next to my property, they have 46 machines, none of which or at the very most 3 or 4 are ever in use at any one time. Secondly, in addition to those 46 machines they have 9 talking items that shout, on top of which they have recently added 4 lucky chairs, and as if that wasn’t enough they have 16 camping chairs. My mute list is a mile long.

As a result, I hate the place with a passion. Our once lag free sim is dead. I am slowly buying up the property and as of Sunday I will own 1/2 the sim compared to their 1/5 sim. I will do a major happy dance should they ever fold, die, go away etc. They teased me recently by putting the land up for sale for a millisecond, but it stayed yellow on the map at a taunting price for 2 days. I immd the owner and asked if they were selling (politely I might add) and of course I was summarily ignored.

Its not so much that I hate casinos, as I do believe and am all for free enterprise, but when you kill a sim with the excessive use of scripted machines and camping chairs, well then - you suck and I want to see your demise more than anything, simply because you lack any common decency or sense.

Lag and tackiness , etc is not a good reason to shut down casinos.

Shut them down becuase you are worried about legalities - Ok

Shut them down becuase you dont want gambling in SL - Ok

But lag/resources/caming avatars - are not a casino only problem therefore Casinos shouldnt be a scapegoat for them



If you want to get rid camping problems - eliminate camping.

The sim where I live has a huge, horrid casino that must be the ugliest building in SL. The only people who use it are campers and when the chairs are 'off' the place is deserted. I would not be sorry to see this place gone (only a matter of time......)

I have spoken out against casinos in SL but I don't think they need to be banned totally but they need to be regulated in size and possibly location.

Kill them all! And all the camping crap too!

Yes, I would like to see the casinos go. Not just because of the lag, and tackiness, and camping. That's the least of my worries.

I would MUCH rather have the casinos go bye-bye, even if it means a temporary crash in the SL economy, than the following alternative, which is very possible.

Imagine attempting to log in to SL one day and finding yourself instead redirected to a US government website, with a notice that Linden Labs is under investigation for providing a platform and profiting from illegal gambling. All assets have been frozen effective immediately, to ensure that no illegal gambling profits are withdrawn, while the FBI conducts their investigation. No timeline is given for concluding the investigation. All of your hard work in SL is for naught. You can't get your money out. Kiss it bye bye, because the Feds may well just decide to seize it.

Think it can't happen? Imagine this - potentially, a TERRORIST group is profiting from gambling in SL. We all know how the US government overreacts when it comes to potential terrorists.

Sorry to get all political here. But this is the real reason why casinos must go.