Linden Labs has announced that there will no longer be any gambling activities allowed in Second Life, citing the need for compliance with real world laws.

[UPDATE: Wednesday, July 25 4:47PM PDT] For those of you who find logging into the Knowledge Base to be sort of kludgy (and I know it is -- we'll find a better way!), I've pasted the text of the policy and FAQ below.

Several months ago we discussed the issue of gambling in Second Life (R) in a blog post, and at that time we let you know that we would no longer accept any classified ads, place listings, or event listings that appear to relate to simulated casino activity.

While Linden Lab does not offer an online gambling service, Linden Lab and Second Life Residents must comply with state and federal laws applicable to regulated online gambling, even when both operators and players of the games reside outside of the US. And, because there are a variety of conflicting gambling regulations around the world we have chosen to restrict gambling in Second Life as described in a revised policy which is posted in the Knowledge Base under "Policy Regarding Wagering in Second Life".

As you review this new policy, please remember that Resident compliance with real world laws has always been an integral part of our Terms of Service. We appreciate your cooperation with this policy, and your understanding that we believe this action is in the best interest of providing a successful Second Life service. Because this is an evolving area of law, we may continue to adjust and clarify this policy as we receive feedback from the community and from legal authorities, or as new regulations, industry practices and technology solutions come into effect.

Read The announcement here.

  Second Life is becoming as boring as real life. yipie. Soon they will make furrys illegal and the game will die.

This has been a long time coming, and quite frankly, this is a good decision.  Considering Linden Dollars have a real cash value, gambling in Second Life is pretty much the same as it would be with any online gambling establishment.  The only way to truly allow gambling in SL would be to remove the ability to sell L$ for real cash, and that isn't possible without losing a bulk of SL's "residents".

This whole thing pisses of me off.. its gambling in a game, whats so bad about it, the FBI keep snooping there nose where it doesnt belong, now the economy in SL is near crashing because casinos and gambling make up a large portion of the money spent in SL...

i dont get this game whats the point of playing life on a computer when RL is so much better, you got lifelike 3d graphics that you can touch and smell, absolutley no lag, and its free. Cant people go outside of their house and just talk with someone or go to the beach or something, if you cant talk with the opposite sex thats understandable but if you cant talk with someone of the same sex then thats just sad...

Originally posted by DrTH

i dont get this game whats the point of playing life on a computer when RL is so much better, you got lifelike 3d graphics that you can touch and smell, absolutley no lag, and its free. Cant people go outside of their house and just talk with someone or go to the beach or something, if you cant talk with the opposite sex thats understandable but if you cant talk with someone of the same sex then thats just sad...

What about the people that are unable to do what you suggest? Say, handicapped people who still have the urge to do things like cosntruct houses, design fashion, endulge in sexual fantasies...

Originally posted by pasi11

This whole thing pisses of me off.. its gambling in a game, whats so bad about it, the FBI keep snooping there nose where it doesnt belong, now the economy in SL is near crashing because casinos and gambling make up a large portion of the money spent in SL...

This means that $L are functionally equivalent to real dollars...which means that the real world laws apply.

Blizzard can put all the casinos in WoW that they want, and not run afoul of the law...because there is no "approved" method of spending real dollars to buy WoW gold, nor is there any way to take your WoW gold and convert it to real dollars.

For Linden Lab to not wind up in court, they had three choices.

* Institute draconian policies that would only allow Gambling in cases where both the Owner, and the Player, have been determined to provably live where gambling is legal for both of them. (that would be horrifically expensive, and the user community would give them TREMENDOUS backlash over the amount of information they'd be required to give LL in order to prove that, basically, it's illegal for them to pay a 'sploder ball where they live...(because it is for most of us...))

* Remove all functionality related to being able to either buy or redeem Linden Dollars for real currency. (Consider where they get most of their money... Uh huh...THAT's gonna happen...*shakes head*)

* Ban Gambling. Period.

It's the best decision they could make under the circumstances.

Originally posted by korvass

Originally posted by DrTH

i dont get this game whats the point of playing life on a computer when RL is so much better, you got lifelike 3d graphics that you can touch and smell, absolutley no lag, and its free. Cant people go outside of their house and just talk with someone or go to the beach or something, if you cant talk with the opposite sex thats understandable but if you cant talk with someone of the same sex then thats just sad...

What about the people that are unable to do what you suggest? Say, handicapped people who still have the urge to do things like cosntruct houses, design fashion, endulge in sexual fantasies...

So are you telling me only handicapped people play Second Life? Frankly, if they have the ability to sit in front of a computer, click and mouse and chat, they are able to go out or invite people over...

Originally posted by korvass

Originally posted by DrTH

i dont get this game whats the point of playing life on a computer when RL is so much better, you got lifelike 3d graphics that you can touch and smell, absolutley no lag, and its free. Cant people go outside of their house and just talk with someone or go to the beach or something, if you cant talk with the opposite sex thats understandable but if you cant talk with someone of the same sex then thats just sad...

What about the people that are unable to do what you suggest? Say, handicapped people who still have the urge to do things like cosntruct houses, design fashion, endulge in sexual fantasies...

On my first day there i sawover 10 gambling esabishments then i saw a large shopping all filled with nothing but Sex Shops. Then i found a ton of zones wherenoone could access as it was restricted. Then i found a fantasy body shop. Finally i found a sex plaze [it was called] Filledwith sexy furnture of all types [which severall customers were testing out right then with the Penus upgrades attached. After this and seeing the terrrable lag i just exited and delited the game full stop.

You can't gamble, but you can still act out rape and child molestation fantasies.

Makes sense.

Second Life is trash and the community is marred by an unusual amount of depraved, sick, horrible people. Please lock yourself in your houses and stay away from the rest of us.

2nd life is wallowing in filth already, getting rid of gambling is just the tip of the iceberg.  Anyone letting someone under legal age play that game should be shot.  

Well then...  lol ...there are certainly a lot of heated opinions regarding Second Life in general here.

It really is a shame that there is such a high level of sexually charged behavior in SL... especially the rape/child play.  There would be a lot of potential for people who like to socialize, and building scripted items is a lot of fun for people like me.  But the level of naughty in SL is just too much.

As for the gambling...  if people are unhappy that online gambling is illegal, then the correct forum to address that issue would be with the elected officials representing them.  The law is the law, and the people we put in office are the ones who passed the legislation to ban online gambling.  Linden Labs is simply following the law (in this particular case... I won't comment on other aspects of legal obligation here as they are off topic).

Originally posted by Corpus47

You can't gamble, but you can still act out rape and child molestation fantasies.

Makes sense.

 

Second Life is trash and the community is marred by an unusual amount of depraved, sick, horrible people. Please lock yourself in your houses and stay away from the rest of us.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

2nd life is wallowing in filth already, getting rid of gambling is just the tip of the iceberg.  Anyone letting someone under legal age play that game should be shot.  

/Agreed to both.

Easy solution, setup your servers in Nevada and get a license.

nope it's a federal online gambling law, not a state gambling law that's stopping this.

don't you people remember any of this news from a few months back.  the most interesting bit was arresting(edit: detained by the FBI) a foreign visitor that ran online gambling games outside the US. 

First life> second life. You can gamble in first life.

they want people to spend more and they want less withdrawing so they baned gambling simple as that .

not a great game in the first place and now they are making it as boring as watching paint dry there come up with an idea where you go into the game and play on a VR pc in 3rd life just so you can be told what to do there

Originally posted by Airspell

  Second Life is becoming as boring as real life. yipie. Soon they will make furrys illegal and the game will die.

exactly,Ban gambling, Ban nudity, Ban drugs, Ban "bad " language, Ban fckn everything... the only game that will be "allowed" by the Game Nazis will be some PURITAN BIBLE ADVENTURE MMOG. Oh wait they won't allow that either becasue the bible is full of all sorts of banned activities.

Dammit I play games to ESCAPE from this kind of censorship and control by politicians!

Thanks for caving in Linden Labs.  You've become part of the problem.

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Originally posted by DrTH
i dont get this game whats the point of playing life on a computer when RL is so much better, you got lifelike 3d graphics that you can touch and smell, absolutley no lag, and its free. Cant people go outside of their house and just talk with someone or go to the beach or something, if you cant talk with the opposite sex thats understandable but if you cant talk with someone of the same sex then thats just sad...

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It may be easier for autistic people and those with various other chronic disorders affecting social ability to interact with others in an online environment rather than the much more complex and demanding RL environment.

Ultimately, the point of "playing life on a computer" is to simulate only select aspects of RL while being able to add things that generally can't be done IRL.

Stupid stupid stupid.

For the person whose telling people to go out and have a real life, you make a lot of sense posting here. Fatty.

As for banning gambling, omg, might as well just shut this game down now. What's left? Nothing.

They started first with worrying about crime in game? Now banning gambling?  Wtf is that? Second Life, not First Life. 

Next is kill someone in-game get death sentence in real life yes!

you can always enjoy second life for what it was meant to be.  a fancy building game.  the 3d modeling is simple, and the scripting is simplified.

I started Second Life around 2004.  Loved it since.  I gambled in that game, yeah you know who doesn't?  Whats it going to hurt if you can take linden dollars and transfer it into real life money?  I honestly don't see the bad part of it.  The federal agency is just sticking their noses where it doesn't belong.  Second Life is a great game, I don't care what anyone says.