Second Life Shuts Down Gambling 263
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."
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.
Re:1 down... (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?
I also remember that I started a "bank" in SL. No interest or investment or anything, you'd just store your money there for one day each week to trick the server into thinking you're poor and giving you an allowance. I wonder if they'll regulate that...
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.
So is sex for money in Second Life prostitution? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
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.)
Gambling outlawed in SL (Score:1, Interesting)
I have virtual land on an island owned by a close personal friend who runs (well, RAN) a very successful casino. He spent a ton of real money on his slot machines, poker tables, blackjack tables, etc - and now that expenditure has become worthless.
Although I commiserate with his loss of overhead spent and all potential for future profit being lost, my opinion is this: If you want to gamble online, go to an online gambling site. Second life is meant to be a place where creatives can collaborate on projects and build their own world around them. Casino owners are now predators who have become the prey. Even after LL announced months ago that gambling was no longer allowed in SL, casino owners kept sinking money into expansion and more ways to leech off the gambling addicts. What were they thinking? It was right there in plain text, NO MORE GAMBLING IN SL! It has been clear for months that LL would have to eventually shut it down completely. I am not going to feel sorry for fools who kept sinking money into what they knew wouldn't last. Perhaps they should contact the people who sold them the slots and other machines AFTER the announcement was made that gambling was on it's way out - maybe they will provide a refund, lol. Buying stock into casino machines was a gamble in the first place, and guess who lost?
Basically, the people who had the money to spend made money on gambling in secondlife. If you couldn't afford to buy a bunch of casino machines and open a huge business, you couldn't reasonably make money in SL. Those of us who have relied on their skill and creativity to profit within SL (as it was always meant to be), are, I would have to say, mostly relieved about the sudden shutdown of these activities, even if it does affect our friends, because this will provide a boon to those of us who make our SL living on products we sell and not by preying on others. I also think the SL nightclub scene will flourish again as casino-goers have to find a new avenue of entertainment. Land prices are likely to drop as casino owners sell off their plots - avatars will soon be spending money on clothes, vehicles, houses, and other cool stuff because they won't be blowing all their earned or bought Linden Dollars on a 'sploder or slot machine.
In closing, I don't mean to sound morally superior, but the casino owners have never been "the house" - the house did indeed win, but the house is now and has always been Linden Labs. I hear reports of everyone selling off all their land and Linden Dollars for real cash and getting out of the game. I even heard that money was being exchanged so fast, LL had to put a stop to withdrawals overnight. If all they had in SL was free money from others playing their "games of chance" - then I don't see it as much of a loss. Take the money and run, when you can get it. The contribution made to the Linden economy by casino "owners" was never worth the cost of the massive lag, unscrupulous money-grubbers, or someone sinking their life savings into a "virtual" slot machine, which may or may not be rigged for unfair payouts.
This may also reduce the "Mafioso Mentality" that is so rampant in SL.
Goodbye hotheads and profit-seekers, hello creatives and world-changers! It's about time.
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.