Casinos - dead and gone w/ new policy?

Possible solution. But as LL, you have to weigh the options. Move the entire corporate environment to a more gambling friendly country, which is going to take a great deal of time and money, or simply don't allow gambling any longer. Considering that the gamblers are only a small part of the SL community, I don't think there really is any argument over what the right course of action is.

That sounds like a mammoth task Ciaran. How many servers are there nowadays? Somewhere between 5,000-6,000? Guessing because it's been a while since I counted.

Anybody with more technical knowledge care to speculate how big a task this would be?

I imagine that regardless of the numbers, those whose sole purpose in SL was gambling won't be missed very much by those who never gamble in SL.

I admit I'm pretty curious what this is going to do in the short term for land valuation and the in-world economy, though I personally doubt it will have much effect over the long term.

Should be very interesting to watch how this all falls out.


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It depends. If every casino owner complies with the ruling then odds are about half would dump thier land. But this will happen as a slow roll-out over time, so I don't see a huge one day panic selloff or anything like that.

But over time this policy change will certainly increase the supply and lower the demand of land overall. I could see the base price dropping L$1 per meter as a result.

Moving the corporate environment to Europe would cost peanuts, like it did with the banking. They have a corporate presence in Europe already, it would take hardly any time and very little money. There's a lot worse stuff than gambling going on, prostitution is illegal in how many US states?

I agree.

Actually I don't think it does matter where the server hosts, as long as you accept bet from US resident you are in violate of federal law.

I dont know why people is angry against LL for the ban. It's the US senate and congress who passed those laws. If you are so unhappy about it, make sure you dont vote for the guy who support the law and you can call them and let them know you are not happy..

I disagree. People are still rushing to buy whole sims at crazy prices, I don't see land falling more than .2- .4L/m2. Any fire sale to get rid of the land will only result in a minor, temporary adjustment. LL is still turning out a lot of land, and casino owners cannot be the vast majority of landholders.

You are not wagering anything with a lucky chair. All the conditions of the rule must be met:

1. A wager.
"AND"
2. Chance or random number.
3. Payout.

No wager? No gamble :^)

It's just moving data, it's hardly a mammoth task. They start by replicating data to new servers outside the US.

Why do you think LL would be motivated to keep gambling going inworld? If anything, they probably want it gone so they can keep improving their image as they prepare to sell to Disney.

Because a lot of land owners who pay them tier fees own casinos. If they're looking for a disney buy out they'd deal with sex first.

I agree that the law that has made all this possible is completely idiotic. That said, I believe you are completely underestimating what it would cost to move the entire corporation overseas. It's not just the servers. They need to move the ENTIRE corporation...they cannot have any presence in the US at all. And how many of their current employees are going to be willing to move to Europe? And how long is it going to take? 6 months...a year? All this for a very small segment of the SL population that wants to see gambling continue.

They can't stop sex. It's too prevalent and hard to track. Casinos they can find and eliminate. I think the ship has sailed on this. They already are letting us know they are willing to lose that tier in order to protect SL as a whole and their asses from the Feds.

Agreed. But they need to purchase the server and network infrastructure in Europe first. Without knowing a whole lot about what hardware LL uses to run SL, I would think that would be the most serious hurdle.

While the loss of casinos in SL doesn't exactly break my heart....colo facility in Nevada? hello.....

Of course they can have a corporate presence in the US, they need to have one, if the servers are outside of the US and Americans are told they shouldn't be gambling then the onus is on Americans not to gamble, the same as it is now with online gambling sites.

Alternatively they do what Blizzard have done with World of Warcraft and have SL Europe and SL US.

I hope so. I do wonder though if the obliteration of sim lagging casinos will make mainland more desirable, resulting in little or no fluctuation at all? Aak, I prefer your scenario. I'd like to see land prices back to last September's level really.

Come off it, the liberals are just as likely to tell people what they can or cannot do as any conservative is.

NO, they cannot have a corporate presence. That is the whole point. You have to leave completely - no buildings, no staff, no nothing, or else you are doing business here and subject to the jurisdiction of the US. Duh. Now, creating SL US and SL Everybody else... maybe that would work. But wow, how to divide up such a cosmopolitan grid? We are too deeply intermingled. They'd have to reissue all the land and separate the servers.

I don't disagree but this anti gambling policy is a conservative agenda, liberals have their own agenda.

Yes they can. Blizzard do it with World of Warcraft, they hold competitions, if the local laws forbid the competion, then people in that country cannot enter, but they can still have a corporate presence in that country.

But that would mean not allowing US citizens to pay money into SL, since any $L purchased has the potential to be used for gambling (and that is all the feds need to make an arrest.) I don't know if that would be good for business.

Those competitions are competitions of skill, which are not subject to the current anti-gambling laws.

So by that token then no US citizen could use paypal because if I sell something to someone on ebay and then withdraw my paypal money and go to the bookies, oopsie I've used it for gambling?