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Dealer Busts
Linden Labs announced today that “casinos” in Second Life will be shut down, effective immediately.
Casinos were up until recently at the top of the “Popular Place” search listings (which are, to be sure, heavily gamed by paying people to loiter), and were popular for much the same reasons casinos in real life are: you can blow a lot of money with the hope of winning. Since the L$ is easily converted to $, this has long been thought a possible legal liability for Linden Labs.
Currently the casinos in SL are still going strong. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any attempt at an active enforcement (something Linden isn’t exactly known for) and if so, how this will effect the stupendously high “$ traded in Second Life” figure proudly advertised on Linden Labs’ front page. (Second Life Insider does a good job at tracking that on a day-by-day basis, so that’ll be where to watch for that.)
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about 3 years ago
Still not dead yet? Fine.
Second Life is a legal train wreck just waiting to happen. It really does feel like Linden has done everything in their power to make RMT quick, easy, efficient and really really easy to impose tax on. I hold some comfort in knowing that RMT liability might be avoidable by simply not condoning it, but this really doesn’t do good things for my indigestion.
Oh well. At least shutting down the Casinos makes things slightly less dodgy.
about 3 years ago
I there even any way to for Linden to enforce this? It’s a good idea mind you. Part of why I quit SL was well over half the buildings were casinos of some sort or another.
about 3 years ago
Sure there is.
They can strip users of their land, so it wouldn’t be unpossible to simply repo the land, return all objects, and then ban the owner. Granted, they’ d have to FIND the casinos, but even with the shitty search function, that shouldn’t be too hard.
about 3 years ago
Well most casinos haven’t actually been hiding up till now. While I deplore the bannzoring of any one industry, the business owner who has seen the top 10 sites in SL be artificially inflated by casinos rejoices. Of course, now the top 10 will be artificially inflated by something else, so my joy will be short lived.
about 3 years ago
First they ban child molestation, and now this!?! What is this virtual world coming too?
about 3 years ago
About to see mass chaos in Second Life?
about 3 years ago
@Cyndre
Seriously – they’ve banned the two things that (sadly) seemed to have attracted most of their subscribers — judging by what seems to be the majority of content in their world.
Maybe now they’ll become a place worth visiting.
about 3 years ago
Hmm, if anything that might “rely on chance or random number generation to determine a winner” can be construed as gambling, that doesn’t bode well for the game worlds…
Richard
about 3 years ago
Yeah, what if an online game was basically a trading card game for all the fights/crafting/challenges (to push the randomness even higher and make it more similar to gambling), AND it also allowed RMT. Could such a game run afoul of the Gaming Commission?
I think converting it back to money is the problem. I suppose as long as a company only allowed you to buy objects but not sell them for real world money, they might avoid it.
about 3 years ago
Well, the player skill element is critical for the game worlds. Or so they’ll claim. And I doubt many have direct L$ rewards.
I’m more..interested that LL have chosen to go “banned as of now” rather than “in thirty days..”. It dosn’t give me an overly favourable impression.
about 3 years ago
There’s no “sky is falling” scenario here, IMO. You simply have, as mentioned above, the ability to cash out endorsed and enabled by the company hosting the gambling site. If LL had left well enough alone with currency exchange and purchase, then they would have much less to worry about.
The other more game-y worlds will be just fine. Hotbutton mashing to kill foozles who may drop items is significantly different than the kind of random number generation taking place with gambling. There is likely some element of skill, regardless of what the wannabe hardcore kids tell you. Let’s not ignore the fact that it doesn’t look like traditional gambling and that the intent is likely different. I don’t see how spending a monthly sub fee is in any way reasonably analogous to placing a bet.
about 3 years ago
All they need to do now is ban anything involving sex and the 2 people left can have a nice conversation!
about 2 years ago
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