Casinos - dead and gone w/ new policy?

Read the policy. First of all it explicitly names poker so Texas Hold'Em is covered. All of these games involve wagering and an element of chance. There is no exemption under the policy for those games in which some measure of skill is involved as well. All it takes is a wager, the element of chance, and $L or an item of value as the prize/payout.

I did not read that their decision was based on US laws... I read it that they made this decision due to the many DIFFERENT laws throughout the globe, and to try to comply to all of them was too confusing and hard, so they simply stopped all casinos, easiest and simpliest way out of it for them

Um. Figure it this way.

They are a corporation inside the United States.

ALL corporations, businesses and citizens are required to follow local, state and federal laws.

Thus Online Gambling being against Federal Law = Cannot happen in SL.

So yeah the US law had a LOT to do with this decision i'm very sure.

what if I am already as fat as them?

what if they are happy with who they are? at least they got their bills paid.
comparing food to gambling is like comparing apples to oranges.

PS some ppl may not think what those ladies look like is considered evil, sometimes ppl look like that because of medical situations and not a food addiction.
Sorry but ppl using obesity to make a point rubs me the wrong way

hmmmm
what if one had a game room that were all free to play, but you had to pay to enter the establishment, like a daily fee or membership.

you are not putting money into the machine, it is free play
there is nothing said about charging ppl to enter your land

well I guess we will agree to disagree on this point, because I take them at face value and I think it has more to do with all country laws, than it does with the US laws.
as big as SL is now, if it was just the US laws they could re locate and just let those in the US deal with not being able to gamble, they could easily program many many things into it that would put a damper on it

but they choose to stop it due to the laws throughout the world
so as for them being in the US, I think that is totally irrelevant

(that is what I think, I can not prove it anymore than you can prove your theory)
so I stand to agree to disagree

Not to change the subject, but if the music industry has its way there wont be much need for clubs soon either. So we can all sit around staring at one another I guess? Anyone want to bet on the next thing to get banned?

Charging people to enter your land is of course fine.

I'm not sure how that'd work though as you're still basically paying for "access" to the gambling machines and you still have a way to payout to real cash.

But yeah this one i'm not sure about ><

And you changed your post

It most certinaly had to do with US law. They had to deal with this now or face the coniquences sooner or later. It might of been easier to go this route than move everything to an overseas location. But yes we wont really ever know but going by the thought this is the best most people come up with.

As for hope's issue - if you're talking about the Internet Radio crud they tried to pull it should be dead in the water last i heard. Haven't really paid attention to it much.

ther eis always live music and indi music

the music industry is just trying to put a stop to the stuff we are supposed to pay royality on

I am just gonna sit back and watch and see what happens

anyone that was here for the "no more advertising of casinos" should have seen this coming
I was not blind, I was expecting it

clubs are not affected by the retarded RIAA mafia tactics in the USA. Clubs have the option to use non USA streams and use DJs that do not play any music from any artist that is a member of the RIAA. and the sooner nobody buys any music from any artist that is a member of the RIAA the sooner the RIAA will be a fleeting moment of retarded lawyers grabbing money in history.

yeah will be interesting to see how they handle that option

after all they are saying it applies to games one has to place a wager on
if I buy a membership to a club that has casino style games in it, but the games require no bet, and it also has other things there such as vendors dancing etc, what will SL do

(not that I plan to try and find out but I am sure now that I have mentioned it, if someone has not thought of it, they will try it)

wonder what places like goldrush will do

Well I'm sure they'll just say no to that anyways because that's a cloudy middle ground. It's techically gambling (i mean duh obviously lol) but it might fly i'm not sure i've read the act awhile back i'll reread it again.

Just think about all the people the "Lab" has just put OUT of busness now..all the scripter and creators..I wonder if they will ever pay for and SL account again now...I wont..ever
I do feel sorry for those guys and gals they just got screwed in a BIG way and the thought police think its great

All I see here is people having to be inventive with their games. If it's purely skill-based, then it will be more FUN, and therefore more appealing.

Slingo, while chance related, has an element of skill that it cannot survive without. Bingo is more illegal than Slingo, as Bingo requires no more skill than marking a number off.

Besides, gambling isn't entirely illegal, if you read the policy, it only eliminates games of chance that rely on real-life sporting events.

So, I propose a solution. Lindens, this is just a way to open discussion a bit more than "Boo!" and "Yay!" Feel free to shoot me down or point out what is flawed so that it can be fixed.

Simple board games, relying not on chance but skill of the player. Let's say Chess. People play chess, and compete. The payout is Lindens, and because it's not real-life, GASP, you can bet on the winner. Not very exciting, but you see where I'm going with this. Keep it to SL, keep it primarily skill based. Heck, have yourself a Chutes and Ladders tourney. That's skill based, right?

Uh reread the policy. It bans ALL GAMBLING not just ones based on sporting events.

What a myopic and distorted world-view. There are so many other things to do here. Those may be the two biggest, though I doubt anyone has any supporting factual data, but they are certainly not the only "two real industries here."


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I totally agree with you I also predict the teen grid becoming one with the main grid in the not to distant future, anyone want a wager on this one? ooppps we are not allowed now Im very suprised this wasnt announced on friday lol

Peace

Well, a few things here.

Firstly, I'll believe LL is serious about this when I see something other than a blog post. What sort of way is that to disseminate critical info? Of all the people in SL, how many actually read the blog on a regular basis? So they are going to close down people's accounts for violating a rules change that they never heard about? How right is that?

If this was a serious, account-banning issue, then the next time you start SL there should be a big box saying "Gambling is now illegal, remove your slot machines or else!", where you have to click OK to proceed.

Secondly, they really have to decide if L$ have value or not. If it is just play tokens, wagering in L$ is not wagering. Playing Newmarket for beans is not gambling, playing it for dollars is. If L$ DO have value, then one could still run games of chance where one staked in prims instead of L$.

Thirdly, poker is not a game of chance. Any chance element is insignificant compared to the skill required to play well. There is a chance element in any game. In chess one can make a lucky move that by chance turns out better than you realised. If you ban poker, you have to ban playing chess for money.

I've no interest in gambling, I think it's a tax on stupidity, especially in SL where there is no-one to check the odds on a slot machine. But I don't like to see LL making more and more restrictive policies. Though at the moment it's more another case of creating FUD with the blog than actually having a clear in-game policy.

$L have value. That one is easy to answer. The rest is a grey as the water in Nautilus.

Anybody know of an SL competitors, for those who like the virtual gambling world but don't live in the U.S.?

I'm just in shock contemplating what it would be like to have a SL business that was worth maybe $50,000 yesterday, suddenly worth zippo today. On a poker table with a 600L big blind, turning an average 20000 pot every 2 mins. Even with only 6 hours of play per day, a 2% rake would take in about .02(20000L x 30 x 6) per day. 72000L x 30 days/270 comes out to 8000 a month. So $50000 for Myth Gaming is probably a low estimate for yesterday. And today it's worth what he can sell the sims for.

It's a tough lesson in the value of cyber-assets, and it must be giving pause to every investor in the game, not just the ones who got royally screwed this time.

I just hope I'll still be able to camp. A lot of camping spots were in casinos. I think I'll still be ok, for now. (shops, malls and clubs do camping, too.) I'm a camper so, of course I never really gambled. (I need to make L$ not lose them.) The one good thing about this for a camper like me is that, hopefully, this means the elimination of paid camping spots. (camping spots that only activate if you pay and play a nearby game.) I always hated those. (buh bye, "happy campers", "death campers", and their ilk.)
Maybe a bunch of freeplay machines will start popping up. That would be awesome. There was this casino I use to go to that had awesome freeplay slots. (they were so awesome that they really helped reduce the amount of time I had to spend camping.) Though you had to pay the machine to activate the freeplay roll, it immediately paid you back you "bet". Unfortunately, I learned a few hours ago that the place is already shut down.

OFFTOPIC: By the way, am I the only camper on this forum? It seems like the only people here are people that hate campers/camping and wish we would just stop playing SL.

Hope they do away with camping next!

DMC, Tringo, Pizza, etc. and the slots are the only reason I started playing SL, even though I'm not a gambler in RL. Without them SL is nothing more than an unstable messenger program. If there are no games to win money on, then I have no money to buy clothes and other items. And since I refuse to spend RL money on RL casino games, five miles down the road on the RL riverboat casinos, then I'm sure not going to spend RL money to buy fake money to buy fake things just so I can stand around with my fake thumb up my fake ass.
If they're permanently gone, then so am I.

Is it just me, or does it seem like people want SL all to themselves?