I've been reporting machines in SL as Gambling machines & up to date no investigation been done

[Matrix Yeu]

I've been reporting machines as been gambling machines not a skills machines several times and up to date no action been taken or answer been replied, so its look like someone from inside Linden Lab been cover those machines for this reason no investigation been taken or any action been taken ... So is this a fair way to deal with serious matters? Or what ?

Well for the last 3 month and up to date nothing happened and I have the prove as those machines not legal at all not even 1% as skills but did you ever ask about the prove, I dare you come and try those machines and tell me where is the skills on it ? But if the owner of those machines have some friends from linden lab there where is the serious matter ... Someone cover him from inside the program :)

all what I'm asking as be fair to everyone and listen to all complains ... Not some goes to the recycling bin as where other complains taken serious because of the person :)

I'm Really sorry i think i came into wrong section ... i thought this page belong to the abuse section ... again i'm really sorry God bless sorry for disturbing you with this matter

i was looking into my e-mail to see if there is an answer and i found at the end of the e-mail link been sent from indra the abuse section i pressed on it and direct me into here

sorry again

[Ansariel Hiller]

LL always investigates those issues but you won't get any answer from abuse reports. If nothing has happened, LL probably thinks they're legal.

[Rolig Loon]

This is a resident-to-resident forum for answering questions about how SL works (or why it doesn't).  Lindens never come here, and we do not have any power or authority to investigate reported abuse.  All we can do is remind you of the AR procedure, and Linden Lab's statement regarding followup: "If you need to add more information after submitting a report, please submit a new report. We try to resolve abuse issues as quickly as possible, but response times vary depending on the number of backlogged abuse reports. For privacy reasons, we are unable to share the details of an investigation into an abuse report.  Once your report has been submitted, we'll take it from there."  It's similar to what the police department would tell you in RL >>> "Thank you for your report.  We will investigate.  We do not comment on ongoing investigations."

 

[Lindal Kidd]

I have a question for you:  Why do you care?

• Do you make and sell competing machines?
• Are the machines causing terrible lag in your sim?
• Is gambling against your religion or something?
• Do you just like to run other people's lives?

If you reported the machines, and LL has not removed them, it's a safe bet (oops, pardon me) that they don't agree with you and have determined the machines are legitimate.  Go on about your day.

[GothGirl Demonia]

Personally I really don't care about gambling, however if you want to see gambling gone yourself, perhaps the best way is to contact the gambling comission in California about the issue, and notify them that people are wagering real money in the virtual world of Second Life using virtual currency that is cashed out to real money, and people are using the false advertisement of game of skill. I agree there is 1% skill involved in these machines.

The right and correct way to do it is to find someone within the legal system who can act upon this, possibly even a report to the FBI would work, but its better to speak to someone in the state where Linden Lab owns their office, and show them evidence of it, possibly even take a laptop down there, go to the news something to expose it, maybe even start a YouTube channel, like a bunch of videos get your results everywhere on the issue until it gets attention.

Of course if you have the money to SUE you could always bring a lawsuit to have these games removed from SL.

While I do not mind gambling the problem with it lies within this.

1. There is no way to tell which games are rigged which ones are not.
2. In real life where I live it requires a gambling license, ( The reason why I have not bought my own games and put them out yet.)

I am not saying that any of the games are rigged, or not, however without the code being avalable to the public, or even licensed for that matter there is no proof anywhere in Second Life to prove that these machines are not rigged for example since anyone has the ability to run such a game that person could empty out their account after getting 100k L$ change accounts, closed down their land they rented and not give anyone anything or have any legal issues. That is the major issue here not saying that people do any of this, but it can happen.

When there are exploits/hacks in anything such as this "Its a game of Skill" people will use them just like people sticking invisi prims over vendors in stores with ALT accounts to scam people of money then cashing out before they get banned or laundering that money away etc.

I mean I don't mind the games in the grid Sometimes I have played them, but I don't spend more than 1-2k at max, and the wins were always low if anything, and I do so knowing that they could be rigged, I can only really count like 3 times I have actually played the games of skill.

[Sigren Panthar]

Yes.  How certain individuals get away with selling blatant gambling machines, that anyone else would not, is interesting, is it not?  Many of us know which machines are being referred to, here.   The so-called 'skill' factor is, as you say, anything but skill; it is gambling, pure and simple.

There is a TOS against gambling, so we are told, and yet........

A job for the Alphaville Herald?  A pity it's best days are far behind it, and investigative virtual journalism not it's forte anymore.  Lucky for LL, too! 

[Sigren Panthar]

Because he is a resident?  

Entitled to both his opinion and confusion about hypocrisy, perhaps?

What's it to you, what anyone posts?

Unless, of course, somone like yourself has more rights than other residents?

Then, your post may hold some worth in excess of the OP's.

[Sigren Panthar]

Nope, don't think he either wants to do that, or that that was his intention in the post. The flagrant violation of the TOS we all - yourself, included - must adhere to, is what his post is about. I daresay, there are many elements of TOS you don't care for either, so feel free to ignore them, and practice what you appear to be preaching to the OP? Let any offended parties refer to RL legal address.

He refers, at least it seems to me, to a certain machine type/seller.    And it does not take a close scrutiny of the code to ascertain the skill level to fall well below a game of such, and instead become a game of chance.

Therefore, the question you should also be asking is, how is this permitted?

As a RL semi-pro gambler, I raise a glass to how the individual behind the mcahcines concerned convinced LL to permit them.

Then again, the creator of Redzone was fine with LL for a good year and a half, as I recall?  

Either LL permits gambling or it doesn't.  Which is it?

[GothGirl Demonia]

The way I see it under the LL TOS it says that Gambling is not allowed.

However in world people make these games which they sell on the Market Place started with as I recall Zyngo, to my knowledge and then expanded into things like Slots, and other games which people tend to sell in packs of 5, and they list it on there as a game of skill not gambling. (Zyngo also was using CDS on their sims which is spyware and loads into peoples media imagine how many people they logged, it is not clear if they still do.)

Based on other Residents, and friends I speak to they say these games are legal to play, and that I should buy some and set up like a big area with nothing but games, I have not done such because I see it as gambling, In fact I have played some of them before so in a way I have contributed to what might not be legal.

The problem with Second Life is this.

Linden Lab to my knowledge charges Tax on L$ purchased, however after that money changes hands in Second Life it can be cashed out without the user paying Tax aka this one simulator that calls itself a MMORPG and is to my knowledge making over $300 + Sim Fees a month should be required by LAW to pay TAX when cashed out, but instead they are making income off of it and not required to pay Tax.  As a gamer of lots of MMORPG based titles I know these game companies make millions as well and they should be required to pay. Lets not forget about the Gambling as well if I won 100K L$ it is value at lets say $400.00 USD, i would have to pay like $33.00 USD in TAX, but instead cashing out through LL, or third party service I don't have to pay anything.

Now lets talk about gambling which is highly illegal without a License to have gambling machines that generate any type of real based income or payout, and people not paying tax on that. While I personally do not mind what people want to do with their money, its a matter of LAW, although some people are like Thugs/ Ganksta's in SL, and say we don't care.

To look at it profesional (Linden Lab) is providing the servers, and service, and these people who are running these gambling, or games of skill off their servers therefore Linden Lab is responsible for it.

In my opnion if LL wants to stay away for these legal issues that could come up from these games they should make it say udner the Terms Of Service, that no games which require payment including Gambling, anything with any sort of payout for being played/won is not allowed as in these games of skill games.

To me these games are gambling.

http://www.cgcc.ca.gov/ I will see if I am awake to give them a call when they are open and see what they tell me.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

LL is the arbiter as to what is or isn't a game of chance here. I doubt there's any conspiracy within LL.

You may think it's gambling, but even poker isn't, according to some: NY judge: Poker's not gambling under federal law

[Amethyst Jetaime]

---

GothGirl Demonia wrote:

 

The problem with Second Life is this.

Linden Lab to my knowledge charges

Tax

on L$ purchased, however after that money changes hands in Second Life it can be cashed out without the user paying

Tax

aka this one simulator that calls itself a

MMORPG

and is to my knowledge making over $300 + Sim Fees a month should be required by

LAW

to pay TAX when cashed out, but instead they are making income off of it and not required to pay

Tax.

 

As a gamer of lots of

MMORPG

based titles I know these game companies make millions as well and they should be required to pay. 

---

You obviously know nothing about US tax law. 

FIrst there is no tax paid for buying lindens.  That is a FEE that LL charges.  It is strictly a currency conversion and that is not a taxable event.  It only becomes taxable when the L's are cashed out and the US dollars received are net earnings. It then bocmes the responsibility of the person receiving the money, or the person who paid them the money that they cashed out.

Second, how do you know that people don't pay taxes on the money they earn in SL?  Not all cash flowing out is net earnings which is what is taxable, most is gross. 

If you own a for profit business in SL and make a profit in terms of RL dollars you must file a tax return on it by declaring it as income just like you would if you owned a business in RL.  In RL no one is required to withhold tax on your cash flow.  How could they since not all cash is profit?  You are assuming it is,  A SL business that files taxes can also deduct legitimate business expenses.  I have owned a RL business and no one withheld tax from any money they paid me, nor were they required to.  However I was required to file tax returns and even make periodic payments to the IRS towards my projected tax bill.

If you have what are considered legal employee's in your SL business and pay them above a certain amount in terms of RL dollars, then you are required to withhold taxes and pay employer taxes just like you would in RL no matter if you pay them in $L's or $US'sand the employee is required to report it as income.   If you pay someone 100L/hr, and they worked for 10 hours a week, for a year, that is 52,000 L , or approx $208US.  To small an amount to be required to withhold.  You have to pay over 2150 US (approx 537, 500L) to be required to withhold. 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

GothGirl Demonia wrote:

Lets not forget about the Gambling as well if I won 100K L$ it is value at lets say $400.00 USD, i would have to pay like $33.00 USD in TAX, but instead cashing out through LL, or third party service I don't have to pay anything.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

This example is not true at all.  It is the person paying it out that is responsible for reporting and any withholding legally required IF the amount paid is above a certain amount in terms of RL money. It is the winners responsibility (ie YOURS) to report any winnings on their tax return  So if you won 100K and didn't report and  pay taxes you are breaking the law not LL.

Withholding taxes is not LL's responsibility except for their own employees.  Under certain circumstances they may be required to report large amounts to the IRS, and they probably do or they'd have the IRS crawling all over them.  The IRS would not ignore an economy as large as SL's which is larger than some countries.

[161488303349]

i dont play the most popular game regularly that you are maybe referring to. can say tho that from the info on a vendors website can make some conclusions about the combinatorics

+

in a game that use a uniformly distributed arrangement the player will always win over the long run without any rules/restrictions put on it by the operator. luck have nothing to do with it over the long term. with or without rules these kinda games are called player advantage games

the skill component has two parts in the main flavour of the game played in SL

first is calculating what the probabilities are of the numbers remaining as they relate to the arrangement of the numbers on the board, so as to make a total game score

second is the jokers. knowing where to place them on the board. is a bit like the game Connect 4 is this part. placing them so that you get best arrangement to maximise the total game score based on the probabilities of the numbers yet to be drawn. is different this from using the joker to complete the current round score. which is what most newbie players only ever consider

+

the main downside to this game is the ability of the operator to set the rules so to reduce the probabilities of the numbers yet to be drawn that would give a total winning score. the downside isnt that they can do this. as is no point operating a game if you get wasted by the players all the time

i try to explain

seems to me that the vendors should know the exact probabilities of their own games on every setting that they offer. maybe they do. seems not tho. on one vendor website the only reference to this is a calculation based on empirical evidence of a very short run, like 10,000. i dont think thats good enough really

whats not good either is when asked the vendor says they cant say what is the best rules settings for an operator. this is contrary to other player/bank probalistic advantage games like blackjack, baccarat and craps. where all the probabilities are exactly known at every given moment, by both operators and players, regardless of whichever set of rules the operator chooses to use

yes there can be billions of combinations in these kinda games. just need to do the combinatoric arithmetic is all

+

in absence of the arithmetic then the operator has to guess what the best rules settings might be to suit their circumstances. is not good guessing

this is the actual downside for both players and people who want to operate them on their sims to pay the tiers and make a little money. as when we have to guess what is the best set of rules then when we guess wrong then can go horrible wrong. in the guessing game can only learn by experience and empiricism. can lose a lot of money learning that way sometimes

+

ps. am going to say something that maybe will inflame some vendors/operators. hope not tho. if you dont know what the combinatorics are on your own game then please dont call players who do: cheats. is like totally total uncool that

 

[Qie Niangao]

Yeah, I was going to say that competitors--or would-be competitors--might have the best standing among the categories of complainants Lindal listed. The Lab has set up what's as close to a gambling monopoly as makes no difference.

That's not to diminish the very substantial hoops through which that creator has had to jump in order to remain compliant with LL's changing, almost mystical operational definition of "gambling." It's effectively impossible to divine what they think that word means in practice, so it's not really surprising that few (if any?) competitors have had the great good fortune and tenacity to keep trying until they happen to guess the secret meaning.

[Perrie Juran]

 

[Carl Thibodeaux]

I don't entirely know if it's relevant to meantion this.

At the moment.. Online Gambling is trying to pass and become legal again.

LL is in California like me. Maybe the places are preparing themselves.

[Maelstrom Janus]

And if they do everyone will be complaining about the lag they cause and trying to do what theyre attacking the op for doing .....

[Cully Andel]

And yet poker machines were removed from Second life when they clamped down on gambling

[Griffin Ceawlin]

That's a very recent ruling (August 21).

[161488303349]

---

Griffin Ceawlin wrote:

LL is the arbiter as to what is or isn't a game of chance here. I doubt there's any conspiracy within LL.

You may think it's gambling, but even poker isn't, according to some:

NY judge: Poker's not gambling under federal law

---

the counter argument is that if poker is a game of skill and not a game of chance then it can be seen as a sporting contest between players. interstate gambling on sporting contests is not allowed

+

personally i think the whole gambling ban is silly 

[Griffin Ceawlin]

I don't think poker could be considered a sport. Even some sports barely qualify...

[161488303349]

yes lol

i dont play ring games. is a bit dull for me to just try and win money

 i like to play in online tourneys and sitngos. is more fun. can monster people in them and make them tilt and they start sledging at you in the chat. so thats kinda sports in a way. well unsports maybe. jejejjejeje (:

but lol is some even bigger monsters than me. lol nom nom nom nom nom !!! is quite fun tho when is monsta monstas playing as well (:

best thing about online is that is always another game. so i dont much care if i get nommed. only time i get a bit upset is if finish 1 outside the bubble after like over 1 hour or more sometimes in a big tourney. thats quite suxy

[jamesjbutler]

You sound like an arrogant little bugger.This is an anything goes virtual reality.If you don't like it then take your pompous little butt out of here.

[Perrie Juran]

 

 

---

jamesjbutler wrote:

You sound like an arrogant little bugger.This is an anything goes virtual reality.If you don't like it then take your pompous little butt out of here.

---

/me peaks over the wall.

/me sniffs.

Yep, this year old thread is gonna need a whole lot of ketchup.   

[Kenbro Utu]

---

jamesjbutler wrote:

This is an anything goes virtual reality.

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You have a lot to learn.  You could start by choosing current topics...

[Drake1 Nightfire]