Are lucky money chairs against the new TOS?

[Maximous Darwin]

I am returning to SL after many years, and I notice that many things changed... and no lucky money chairs can be seen like before.
In 2008 I created a lucky money chair and I was promoting it at that time, but now I don't know if lucky money chairs are legal or illegal.
My chais are not camping chairs, they only pay if an avatar sits, and their name start with the lucky letter/number.
Also, they have anti-bot protection, to protect the land owners from unwanted bots, and and to avoind camping.

I searched the internet for answers about this subject, but I can only find about the use of robots or other automated means to increase traffic, and about populating camping chairs with bots.
Quoting the words of Jack Linden, he states:
"We didn't feel that it made sense for us to try to define every single object that might be used to this effect. If we had said camping chairs were disallowed then camping swings would replace them, then camping trees, giant mushrooms, unicorns and so on. Instead we are making it clear that the deliberate gaming of Search, if we see it taking place, will be something we take action on. We know there will be some perfectly legitimate uses of chairs, and we'll be as fair as we can be when looking into these cases"

If they are still allowed I am willing to make my chairs even smarter, to avoid bots and abusive usage.

As far as I can see the places are not sorted by popularity anymore, and free lindens are still a good way to make our visitors want to return.

What do you guys think about this subject?

[Rolig Loon]

There's no skill involved in "winning" at a lucky chair and you don't pay anything to play either.  It's a promotional gimmick, handing out free gifts to random passersby.  If you examine the Gambling Policy or the Skill Gaming Policy, you'll find nothing in there that makes Lucky Chairs illegal.  Having said that, Lucky Chairs are nowhere near as popular as they were back in, say, 2007.  Then again, neither are in-world shops in general.  In world merchants seem to have moved on to other marketing ploys.  Hunts are much more popular than they used to be, and so are various "member only" specials, and there are a lot more blogs than there once were.  Maybe Lucky Chairs are passe. 

[Lindal Kidd]

I have very seldom seen a Lucky Chair that pays out $L as its prize, but I have seen a couple of them.  Most Lucky Chairs give out merchandise.

As far as I know, a Lucky Chair that gives out a cash prize is not against LL's gambling policy.  

[Prokofy Neva]

"Money chairs" that pay out money to avatars who sit in them are exactly the same thing as "camping chairs" and will be treated the same as them by the Lindens.

Indeed they are outlawed by the TOS -- it's not about gaming, but about "traffic enhancement":

See here:

6.3 Additional rules of conduct apply to users of Second Life:

In addition to the rules set forth in Sections 6.1 and 6.2 above, you agree that you will not:

(i) Use robots or other automated means to increase traffic to any Virtual Land;

It's not only about bots here; the chair itself is the 'automated means' giving out money and enabling traffic injection.

What's been provided here is merely an answer from a fellow resident on their guess as to how this might apply under gaming; I'm also merely applying my common-sense interpretation of the TOS, but at least I'm pointing out that this isn't about gaming but about traffic manipulation.

The Lindens will ultimately rule on it and my bet is that they will not allow it, because it's traffic manipulation.

But they may simply not bother to enforce it. I'll be happy to abuse-report it when I see it as will others, and maybe they will pay attention.

Years of effort went into getting the Lindens to eliminate the manipulation of traffic -- it's far from free of elimination but at least the obvious gaming is now in principle removed and able to be enforced, i.e. boxes of bots. 

Search is distorted and the market is not free when people can game traffic to create the false impression a site is popular and has sales when in fact it doesn't. The Lindens' search algorithms compensate for some of this anyway and themselves arguably constitute a form of unacceptable market interference but that's another story.

The bottom line is that paying people to stay on your land thereby driving up traffic results is something still punishable under the TOS, and it's not about gambling.