Slashdot Log In
Second Life Shuts Down Gambling
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Jul 26, 2007 09:18 AM
from the more-and-more-like-first-life dept.
from the more-and-more-like-first-life dept.
Tech.Luver sends us to The Inquirer, which notes the banning of all gambling in Second Life. Here is the Linden Labs blog post about the change in policy, which is, to say the least, not popular. From the article: "[T]he large chunk of users that enjoyed using in-world casinos and betting Linden Dollars on events both inside and outside the game world will now have nothing left to do. Perhaps more to the point for Linden, the move will cut off the revenues earned from those owning Casino-style islands in the game, the owners of which are some of the top contributors to the Linden coffers through currency fees and land rental."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
1 down... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one hand, I get it. Since the Linden actually has a conversion rate with "real" money, the gambling is gambling for "real" money and there are all kinds of laws about that, including last years
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which is directed at the companies that host gambling sites, rather than the players, making it much easier to enforce. I can't see Linden bucking that, though a sneaky gambling "underground" would be awesome, far far cooler than actual legal gambling.
On the other hand, what a bunch of nanny-state crap.
Re:1 down... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's actually a twofer for the senators, they get to throw a bone to their religious right and nanystate voters and they get to support the interests of their entrenched corporate gambling masters.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Can't we give congress more vacations? Maybe if they were in session less they'd make fewer interferances into the lives of the common citizen. In the early years of the US, didn't congress only meet for a few weeks out of the year?
Re:1 down... (Score:5, Informative)
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
But anyway, isn't it still possible to gamble online in the US? I see ads for, I think, 888.com all the time, or used to. How can that be legal but not this?
On the one hand, I get it. Since the Linden actually has a conversion rate with "real" money, the gambling is gambling for "real" money and there are all kinds of laws about that
Yes, such as tax law. As I've argued before [slashdot.org], there are serious consequencs to the convertibility of online game currencies. If it can qualify for gambling laws, it can qualify for ingame taxation.
I also
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
having "sex" in SecondLife, or any other game, is already pointless. That you would even call it sex, and not at least "sex," is very sad. You do understand the point of sex is, well, the physical touch, and the bonding from the intimacy? Neither of which is remotely possible, err, remotely. Rather, neither of which is remotely possible in a game.
Wake me when it looks at all re
Re: (Score:2)
Anyway, I used too many "air quotes" in that post already, without adding more. If someone is confused enough about the nature of SL to think that they can have actual sex, I don't feel any requirement to enlighten them.
Re:1 down... (Score:5, Insightful)
Internet sex is all about the fantasy. The point of it is doing things you would never do, whether that be new partners, positions, or species. It might be as timid as a housewife who would never cheat in RL experiencing a fake affair, or it might be as extreme as snuff/vore/rape play. Either way, it's about experiences one would never and should never pursue in real life. Making it more 'realistic' -- as in better graphics -- would be nice, but making it real would *ruin* the concept.
You don't pay hookers in real life to have sex with you, you pay them to go away afterwards. You don't pay hookers over the internet to have sex with you, you pay them to be imaginary and stay that way.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hey come on! Leave my sex life out of this! Geez, I'm not speculating about sex with rodents am I?
Re:do what you won't do (Score:4, Insightful)
You and your partner need to have strong imaginations, though. It's amazing what well written words can do to arouse and stimulate the mind... and other places on the body too.
Yes, it's not as good as real sex. But for folks who are far from those they really love, it can come close in an emotional way.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you're doing safe, legal alternatives to them. Which is a significant advantage over the real thing.
Me, I'd rather *do* the things I'd never do.
Have you looked at a list of popular internet fetishes lately? They include rape, torture, suicide and worse. Me, I'd rather not *be* a monster, even if pretending to be one every now and then is relaxing.
And that's without touching on fantasies that are physically impossible
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:1 down... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:1 down... (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a link to a virtual worlds site that's been following Germany's ongoing hissy over virtual child porn. [virtualworldlets.net] It's funny how we're such a conservative country compared to pretty much every country in europe, but our conservative government is really trying to push us in the direction of their weird morality laws.
I still think all this stuff devolves on parents to monitor and supervise their kids; in the absence of a reliable way to make sure underage people aren't involved, that's the only workable solution.
Parent
Protest today in SL (Score:2)
"Protest the end of SL Casinos!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Clementina/188/122 [slurl.com] Protest Encroachment of
Real-Life US law into Second Life... 1 PM today... pplease IM all your
friends about this demonstration at governor Linden's Mansion.."
Totally pointless. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Think/read carefully before posting (Score:3, Insightful)
OK time to start Third Life (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OK time to start Third Life (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, the entire economy of SL revolved around gambling, prostitution, and the sale of devices intended to aid gambling and prostitution. I'm having a hard time picturing how this is going to fall out. A flight to an lawless 'third life' might actually happen.
Parent
At least (Score:5, Funny)
I bet... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I bet... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Here's an idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Why couldn't they effectively tax it? If the company running the game simply started reporting conversions from in-game currency to US dollars to the IRS as income it would do two things:
The same standards could be applie
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Games of Luck? (Score:2)
Blackjack
Poker
Don't those games have some skill to them?
I recall that efforts have been made to reclassify poker as a game of skill and not a game of chance, to get around gambling laws.
Re: (Score:2)
Blackjack is a game of luck that involves skill.
Poker is a game of skill that involves luck.
Casinos in MMOs (Score:5, Interesting)
If Linden introduced a "play money" currency in the game that wasn't officially convertible to cash, but allowed players to decide to accept it for whatever they wanted (including in-game cash), would that also be illegal in the US?
Sony Online games are divided into two, with a minority of servers for games like EQ2 allowing real-money transactions and the majority disallowing it. Is gambling legal on the majority of those servers, but illegal in the minority?
This really does push the question of how virtual these virtual worlds really are.
This is a good thing. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's worth noting that online gambling has been illegal in the US for a while now, [slashdot.org] and it's something of a surprise that Linden let things continue for so long.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
At any rate, the issue isn't gambling itself, at least for me. I'm no gambler beyond the occasional lotto scratchcard, but I don't mind at all that it exists. Let people have their fun, I just won't be joining in. However, the implementation of same in
Re:This is a good thing. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Friendster all over again (Score:5, Insightful)
So if I were a betting man (no pun intended), I would abandon Second Life now, and look into the most promising of Second Life's impersonators that doesn't intrude on your freedoms like Second Life.
People do not like unnecessary intrusions on their freedoms, in real life or on the Internet. However, unlike real life, people can vote with their feet a lot more effectively on the Internet, and simply leave and encamp somewhere else, en masse. Carpe Diem, Website investors.
The promise of Second Life, if there is any at all, is that it would allow you to do things you can't do in real life. So what does Second Life do? Make it more just like real life, and kill off what would make Second Life attractive to anyone who would want to go there in the first place, and/ or stay there. (Smacks forehead.)
In Second Life's defense, perhaps they are under political pressure to abandon online gambling, which would make sense owing to being based in the USA and the USA's current retarded attitude towards online gambling [wikipedia.org].
Well then relocate your servers to Antigua [wikipedia.org].
Or make a poor policy choice, piss off your users, and wither and die.
Study the Friendster warning example carefully, dear Second Life executives.
Interesting (Score:2)
So is sex for money in Second Life prostitution? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So is sex for money in Second Life prostitution (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Player run Casino-style games (Score:2)
Win Win Lose Lose (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd suspect that Linden is under some pressure from some government somewhere, and that's the real reason they're doing this.
There will always be people willing to trade their hard-earned Linden dollars for the thrill of possibly winning a lot more from someone else, no matter how long the odds. Those people will now take their money elsewhere, to the detriment of Linden Labs and all the denizens of Second Life.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Linden = Dictatorship (Score:4, Insightful)
Not ALL gambling banned (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, only specific types of wagering is banned.
From the Blog:
It is a violation of this policy to wager in games in the Second Life (R) environment operated on Linden Lab servers if such games:
(1) (a) rely on chance or random number generation to determine a winner, OR (b) rely on the outcome of real-life organized sporting events,
AND
(2) provide a payout in
(a) Linden Dollars, OR
(b) any real-world currency or thing of value.
I don't bring this up to split hairs, only to point out that personal contests seem to still be allowed. It seems reasonable, based upon the above, that one could wager on games where the participants compete directly with each other, such as races, tic-tac-toe and so on.
Also, the ban seems to be specific to sporting events, wagers on other events still seem acceptable (elections, the Dow Jones, weather patterns, etc.)
I'm not a lawyer, and stories of Linden Labs capricious application of their rules exist, and I'm not even sure Linden Labs has to actually be accountable to any legal authority about how it administers its TOS, so in the end you have to wager at your own risk.
Anything for some PR? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just a PR move by Second life to get more attention but instead we should just move on to other stuff. We moved from too many WoW stories to too many Second Life stories, and now we just seem to be stagnating, anyone have an idea for the next "big thing"?
Verification and Reimbursement (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Independent of any legal issues, SL players have no way of verifying that the operations of a "casino" are legitimate. I can't imagine why anyone would give in-game currency to a "slot machine" that has almost certainly been programmed to make sure that the house always wins. From this standpoint, banning such activities isn't necessarily a bad thing. (Indeed, games like World of Warcraft that have banned "casinos" have done so because players tend to spam to advertise games which are so stacked against their customers to count as scams, not because they felt that gambling for in-game currency violated federal law.)
2. Notably, the blog post also declares that there will be NO REIMBURSEMENT for second life "property" removed in order to enforce this policy, much less for devaluation of in-game "land" that used to host a high-traffic casino. I'm half curious whether we're going to see any lawsuits over this, and, in the longer term, whether this will affect peoples' willingness to purchase virtual assets from Linden Labs. I find it remarkable that anyone would willingly purchase "property" that can be rendered valueless at the discretion of the service providers under the terms of service. (Indeed, a court has already ruled against the TOS' arbitration clauses, arguing that they were too one-sided to be enforcible, so perhaps there is an open door to raise just such a challenge here.)
Thoughts from a Former SL Nightclub Operator (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess I'm not really sad to see gambling go, but I'd like to see the law changed because it clearly is all about patronage for the big brick and mortar casino interests. Regardless, it is the law and Linden Labs has to obey it if they want to remain in business. Like it or not, that's a fact.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)