Casino in Second Life? is Gambling Back?

[Love Zhaoying]

14 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Whichever one has the most arms?

I find your comment rather disarming.

ETA: When Durga was created by all the other gods, to save them when Shumba and Nishumbha took over Heaven (see, the Ratri Suktam), they all gave Durga their weapons.  So, while Durga may not have the "most arms", she has the "best armaments" ("arms").

Edited May 11, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[Love Zhaoying]

24 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

Tired of this diversion. Let's get back to our regular programming (or the next goofy thing that LL does).

That raises an interesting question.

The Social Casino is possibly to distract us from something else. But what?

[Qie Niangao]

11 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Try searching for just Helios?

Yes, that returns the same Helios-named regions including the Helios Casino region, and the Destination Guide item (for "Helios Casino & Lounge") as does a search for "Helios Casino",  the difference being that including "Casino" in any search pattern also raises the "outside our TOS" complaint.

Originally, I meant to observe that they don't have Search enabled on either of the parcels in the region, so the parcels aren't listed in the Places search results (for any query). At the time I figured it would be pointless to enable search as parcel options on the theory that the TOS constraint would never return them in the listings, but I realize now that other text in the parcels' names and descriptions could still get them listed in search results for queries including those other terms, even though "casino" is still an un-matchable term.

It would seem significant that "casino" is still unavailable to search, even while the Lab is experimenting with what it terms a "social casino". Perhaps the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, or there are only now TOS changes afoot to make Search safe for casinos, or there's something unfathomable going on that can reconcile these apparently contradictory conditions.

[Silent Mistwalker]

14 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Yes, that returns the same Helios-named regions including the Helios Casino region, and the Destination Guide item (for "Helios Casino & Lounge") as does a search for "Helios Casino",  the difference being that including "Casino" in any search pattern also raises the "outside our TOS" complaint.

Originally, I meant to observe that they don't have Search enabled on either of the parcels in the region, so the parcels aren't listed in the Places search results (for any query). At the time I figured it would be pointless to enable search as parcel options on the theory that the TOS constraint would never return them in the listings, but I realize now that other text in the parcels' names and descriptions could still get them listed in search results for queries including those other terms, even though "casino" is still an un-matchable term.

It would seem significant that "casino" is still unavailable to search, even while the Lab is experimenting with what it terms a "social casino". Perhaps the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, or there are only now TOS changes afoot to make Search safe for casinos, or there's something unfathomable going on that can reconcile these apparently contradictory conditions.

How much you want to bet you get the same kind of results if you searched "Helios Gambling"?  🤣

It doesn't appear that LL has officially opened it to the SL public. Perhaps that is one of the changes that needs to be made before officially opening the casino.

[Rowan Amore]

Once they put it up in the Destination Guide, it's pretty much open to the public.

[Silent Mistwalker]

37 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I find your comment rather disarming.

ETA: When Durga was created by all the other gods, to save them when Shumba and Nishumbha took over Heaven (see, the Ratri Suktam), they all gave Durga their weapons.  So, while Durga may not have the "most arms", she has the "best armaments" ("arms").

I was thinking more of Vishnu. Many heads to go with many arms. Sort of like crowds in SL.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Once they put it up in the Destination Guide, it's pretty much open to the public.

Hopefully it will be easier to search for then!

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Once they put it up in the Destination Guide, it's pretty much open to the public.

Which is why I said "officially".

Has anyone seen an LL blog announcement yet? I haven't looked. 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

I was thinking more of Vishnu. Many heads to go with many arms. Sort of like crowds in SL.

Some have many faces, some have many heads, most have many arms and weapons. (Except the two-armed incarnations.)

But some of those weapons are amazing! I found you can get full-size representations of some of them, for $$$$.  Not sure my shrine needs a copy of Visnu's disk (chakra) weapon. 

[Rowan Amore]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

Hopefully it will be easier to search for then!

I generally don't use search terms in the destination guide.  I check.out specific tabs.  Editor's Pick (which the casino is in), Newly Added ( also in), Photogenic spots, etc.

I use the regular search for a specific place such as store.or club.

[Love Zhaoying]

I wonder if the Twitter post will get "accidentally" deleted?

[Rowan Amore]

3 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Which is why I said "officially".

Has anyone seen an LL blog announcement yet? I haven't looked. 

They officially posted it on their Twitter account which prompted the threads here.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Rowan Amore

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Hopefully it will be easier to search for then!

I generally don't use search terms in the destination guide.  I check.out specific tabs.  Editor's Pick (which the casino is in), Newly Added ( also in), Photogenic spots, etc.

I use the regular search for a specific place such as store.or club.

I don't search in general, I figure the coolest place is wherever I happen to be at a given moment.

[Silent Mistwalker]

6 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

They officially posted it on their Twitter account which prompted the threads here.

Twitter is outside of LL's jurisdiction.

I'm not the only one who doesn't use Twitter.

 

Yes, I knew the tweet was the reason for the threads. It hasn't been announced anywhere else within LL's jurisdiction so it isn't official to me.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Silent Mistwalker

[Gwin LeShelle]

11 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Twitter is outside of LL's jurisdiction.

I'm not the only one who doesn't use Twitter.

 

Yes, I knew the tweet was the reason for the threads. It hasn't been announced anywhere else within LL's jurisdiction so it isn't official to me.

Yep they probably hold back the posting because:

X3

[diamond Marchant]

5 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

5 hours ago, diamond Marchant said:

Yes, found it, ty. They give themselves non-exclusive rights to your stuff and at the end, suggest that this is for debugging/support purposes.

 

That's more an also sentence.  The first part basically they can do anything they choose to do with it.

This is getting curious-er and curious-er. The TOS Section 2.3 says creators (residents) give Linden Lab a "Service Content License" which allows them to sell resident content. I had been distracted by other language such as "You retain any and all Intellectual Property Rights you already hold under applicable law".

I have no evidence that Linden Lab is behaving badly in any way with respect to resident property.

However, should the owners of Linden Lab (an investment group led by Randy Waterfield and Brad Oberwager) decide to sell Linden Lab, the new owner would have non-exclusive rights to all resident content. They could close Second Life (which may or may not be a good investment) and open some new thing that exploited the old Second Life resident content.

[Paul Hexem]

3 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

What gave you the idea that the Linden Lab policy is to "protect its users?" Generally the only reason they pull back on the leash is to avoid negative attention; other than that it's pretty much anything goes. Not even saying that's a bad thing.

Ultimately, is there really that much difference in allowing people spend money to gamble while knowing they'll never being able to win the money back and allowing them to spend money on an imaginary sofa?

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

LL only banned gachas to protect their own a** .  It had absolutely nothing to do with residents' protection.  

As a matter of fact, I'm willing to believe the "free starter chips" have a better chance of winning than the ones you pay for. That's classic MMO monetization; get easily addicted players hooked with some free/cheap intro stuff that gives the dopamine hit fast.

[Persephone Emerald]

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

They officially posted it on their Twitter account which prompted the threads here.

I found out from this FB post:

Now open in Second Life! The all-new Helios Casino & Lounge is Second Life's premier social casino where you get free chips to play daily!  Whether you want to play a hand of Blackjack, spin the reels of a slot machine, or just hang out and chat with your friends, this social virtual casino has it all! Teleport in for a unique and rewarding gaming experience.

Teleport now! ➡️ https://secondlife.com/destination/helios-casino-lounge  

Helios offers casino-like games for amusement purposes only. Chips cannot be cashed out for L$ or real world currencies.

#SecondLife #VirtualWorld #Metaverse #SecondLifeSocialCasino

Edited May 11, 2023 by Persephone Emerald
Replaced link with copy of post

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

7 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I found out from this post on Facebook.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=775639347356224&id=100047304966691&mibextid=DcJ9fc

Is it possible to post what it says for those of us that avoid Fakebook like the Covid?

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

Is it possible to post what it says for those of us that avoid Fakebook like the Covid?

Don't have to have a Facebook account to see the link.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

Don't have to have a Facebook account to see the link.

Maybe it's on my end. I got the Fakebook log in box.

[Love Zhaoying]

15 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I found out from this post on Facebook.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=775639347356224&id=100047304966691&mibextid=DcJ9fc

Only 4 comments, and one is a "thumbs-up" emoji. Huh.

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Twitter is outside of LL's jurisdiction.

I'm not the only one who doesn't use Twitter.

 

Yes, I knew the tweet was the reason for the threads. It hasn't been announced anywhere else within LL's jurisdiction so it isn't official to me.

Um ok.  It was LL's (SL's) official Twitter account so...

Edited May 11, 2023 by Rowan Amore

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

Is it possible to post what it says for those of us that avoid Fakebook like the Covid?

59 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Don't have to have a Facebook account to see the link.

Now open in Second Life! The all-new Helios Casino & Lounge is Second Life's premier social casino where you get free chips to play daily!  Whether you want to play a hand of Blackjack, spin the reels of a slot machine, or just hang out and chat with your friends, this social virtual casino has it all! Teleport in for a unique and rewarding gaming experience.

Teleport now! ➡️ https://secondlife.com/destination/helios-casino-lounge  

Helios offers casino-like games for amusement purposes only. Chips cannot be cashed out for L$ or real world currencies.

#SecondLife #VirtualWorld #Metaverse #SecondLifeSocialCasino

[Marigold Devin]

22 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

 What bothers me is that LL is the owner/operator. 

Yes, this is what I keep coming back to. 

I'm only half the way through catching up with this thread. I saw the message from LL on one of the social media sites advertising their new casino and I thought "hang on a minute". I thought gambling in any form was banned.

But then the more I looked the more I saw that Linden Lab had tried to find a way to get round the U.S. laws.

It's a casino.

Casino! 

How is that ever right to have if gambling is banned in Second Life? 

My head hurts.

Also, while a casino holds no interest for me, I can easily lose a few hundred LS in a session at a Skills Gaming Region, which in reality is still gambling, and addictive. And while I'm playing on 10L$ machines, I've seen others go to L$5000 and upwards. How come they're still allowed? 

My head hurts, but this thread is surely the most interesting one I've read in a while. Lots to think about. Going for a RL bath.