Casino in Second Life? is Gambling Back?

[Rick Nightingale]

18 hours ago, elleevelyn said:

pretty much most real casinos world-wide follow the gameplay rules developed by Harrahs.

According to the NC that the blackjack tables give, it's followed except that there is no splitting. Bit of a poor do that, I think, and I've no idea how it affects the odds. The NC does say a six-deck shoe but nothing about when that is replaced.

[Love Zhaoying]

27 minutes ago, Rick Nightingale said:

The NC does say a six-deck shoe

Now, them are some high heels!

[Sid Nagy]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Don't know but..

I don't think the "Social Casino" is even "gambling", at all! So if LL created websites for the same thing as at Helios..nope. (As said in another post, it's more like an "Arcade".)

 

I know, but I was thinking in case LL would open a separate website/world with gambling possibilities. So with real cash outs. They would need a license first.

To demonstrate the possibilities with the SL engine to others outside of LL and SL, this casino is just fine.
Even more when people are really playing there for God knows what, but not for a possible profit.

Edited May 14, 2023 by Sid Nagy
Oops, I thought it was Saturday: my edit the text hobby day.

[Jaylinbridges]

20 hours ago, diamond Marchant said:

Aren't the ATM machines simply a working demo of an ATM machine (didn't actually try one... do they work?)

Will anyone pay for something that is free?

Finally, why do we assume that this is intended for Second Life? Linden Lab could deploy Casinos on another grid.

The ATM machines are not a demo. They work, as in they will take lindens from your account, or if you don't have enough lindens to cover the minimum L$ 799 purchase, will ask you to buy more lindens with an instant buy from your credit card or Paypal.  Same as any other linden purchase.

Someone in LL thinks residents will pay.  SL residents pay for all kinds of useless junk and services. It is not free if you run out of chips, and can't wait until the next day to get your huge 120 free chips. Play a game with 50 chip bets, and you will last about 5 mins before you are broke again.

It's not a demo if you pay lindens to lose, and it is in the Linden game region of the grid.  Why would SL need to demonstrate they can build a simple casino with two games, no employees, and no drinks. That's been done dozens of times in the past by residents with more games, employees and decor. I don't think there is anything to see in this new venture but what it is.  So far all the conversations I have heard in the casino are about what kind of a joke this is, with no rewards or cash to win.  Others complain they lost their first 500 in 15 mins, and won't be back after that experience.

 I have to admit that BlackJack dealer at the cheap tables hit more 20 and 21 without blowing out, than I ever did.  If I stand at 19, dealer gets 20, usually two face cards.  If I stand at 20, the dealer has an Ace, and turns a Jack for 21.  I was lucky to play 3 cards without blowing up busting for the whole session tonight.

Edited May 14, 2023 by Jaylinbridges

[Rowan Amore]

4 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

 I have to admit that BlackJack dealer at the cheap tables hit more 20 and 21 without blowing out, than I ever did.  If I stand at 19, dealer gets 20, usually two face cards.  If I stand at 20, the dealer has an Ace, and turns a Jack for 21.  I was lucky to play 3 cards without blowing up for the whole session tonight.

That was my experience as well.  

[Love Zhaoying]

47 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

That was my experience as well.  

What does "blowing up" mean for Blackjack? Going over 21?

[Jaylinbridges]

10 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

What does "blowing up" mean for Blackjack? Going over 21?

Same as busted. Going over 21 with the last card called the bust card, which is an automatic loss.

Blowing up was my term, and when you do there is a minor explosion at the bust card on the table.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Jaylinbridges

[elleevelyn]

On 5/15/2023 at 12:21 AM, Rick Nightingale said:

According to the NC that the blackjack tables give, it's followed except that there is no splitting. Bit of a poor do that, I think, and I've no idea how it affects the odds. The NC does say a six-deck shoe but nothing about when that is replaced.

thanks for the info. I still haven't had a chance to go look yet, RL and all that

with not being able to split pairs then the player advantage reduced by about 0.4%. So a basic card counting EV (expected variance) of about +0.2%. Which is not bad, as in really bad meaning negative EV

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

On 5/9/2023 at 1:23 AM, diamond Marchant said:

no betting or winning anything of value… survey says… not gambling

No, just a blatant theft of lindens. 

Not cool at all.

[diamond Marchant]

1 minute ago, SpiritSparrow Skydancer said:

No, just a blatant theft of lindens. 

Just curious, has anyone actually paid Lindens for chips and then played them away? I honestly don't know why anyone would pay money to play a casino game with no possibility of winning any money. If someone did such a thing, was it because they believed they could cash out the chips?

[Alwin Alcott]

1 hour ago, diamond Marchant said:

If someone did such a thing, was it because they believed they could cash out the chips?

that wouldn't be a surprise if that happened/happens .. we can see  people everywhere that don't read the TOS/guidelines/rules, or forget parts of it.

[Rat Luv]

5 hours ago, diamond Marchant said:

Just curious, has anyone actually paid Lindens for chips and then played them away? 

No way...even if there was a chance of winning something, the minimum to buy chips would be £25  I am already cutting back on spending and saving as much as I can with everything that's going on in the world...

5 hours ago, diamond Marchant said:

I honestly don't know why anyone would pay money to play a casino game with no possibility of winning any money. If someone did such a thing, was it because they believed they could cash out the chips?

I had never heard of social casinos before, but apparently they're huge and very popular (which is probably why LL has set this up... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) This video explains it quite well!

 

[Jaylinbridges]

Here's another report about these online social casino's by PBS television.  I guess we know why there is a whale area for big spenders in the SL casino.  Amazing that this is a growing industry, with Billions in profits now, all from addicts spending real money, or lindens which you buy with real money - with no rewards except the addiction of playing.

How much does LL expect to earn from their version of a Social Casino?  They did not build this and pay the game designers, with no expectations of profit.  Interesting no Lindens have chosen to respond to any of the two Topics about this. 

I saw one industry report that said about 90% of the revenue from these social casino games is from portable devices/smart phones.  Once SL gets their mobile version released, I can see the same high percent of addicts losing real money in SL.

And mods, don't try and claim this is off topic because the YouTube videos are not about SL - yet. This is an identical business in SL, just on a startup scale.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Jaylinbridges

[Innula Zenovka]

50 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

How much does LL expect to earn from their version of a Social Casino?  They did not build this and pay the game designers, with no expectations of profit.

Since social casinos are a popular form of online entertainment, might it not just be that LL's marketing team think that offering a version of a social casino in SL could be a good way of attracting new residents, who may find they prefer the experience of playing these games inworld to on a web page, and who may even, now they've set foot in SL, decide to explore a bit more and start spending more time and money in-world?

That seems to me the simplest explanation, and would explain why the region was launched on Facebook and Twitter.

[Qie Niangao]

50 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Since social casinos are a popular form of online entertainment […]

In literally the last three posts (that is, the last three minutes), I learned that "social casino" is a real thing. Probably the preceding sixteen-odd pages included posts trying to explain that, but I couldn't see it. It seems so fantastically silly that surely only gambling addicts could possibly pay to play these things. I mean, I've played occasional RL casino blackjack just for the mild amusement of a possible win, but these "social casino" games are purely about how long it takes to lose. If you're not already a gambling addict, how would this ever catch on?

That said, yeah, given that this phenomenon exists, I guess it's almost inevitable that the Lab would want it in SL, and not only for whatever L$s they could snarf from their little sample installation. (If they're going to do that, though, they need to un-ban the "casino" word from "Places" search matches.)

The whole "social casino" practice really does need to be outlawed, though, in any jurisdiction where gambling is regulated at all. If I'm right and it only appeals to addicts, it's way more parasitic than regular online gambling.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Qie Niangao

[Innula Zenovka]

13 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

In literally the last three posts (that is, the last three minutes), I learned that "social casino" is a real thing

I'm in exactly the same position as you, Qie.  And once I learned what social casinos actually are, things became a lot clearer.

As Sherlock Holmes remarks to Dr Watson, in A Scandal in Bohemia, 

Quote

"This is indeed a mystery," I remarked. "What do you imagine that it means?"

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

 

Edited May 16, 2023 by Innula Zenovka

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

The whole "social casino" practice really does need to be outlawed, though, in any jurisdiction where gambling is regulated at all. If I'm right and it only appeals to addicts, it's way more parasitic than regular online gambling.

Idea: Just make it "free" since we already pay for Premium memberships.

Barring any rules against it, anyone could setup a similar sytem on their own Region or Parcel - and just make it totally free. Since that would "compete" with LL's "NOT FREE" model, I wonder how that would end?

Real Life comparison:  Here in the US (at least in the states I am aware of), it is legal for individuals to own certain "casino equipment" in their own home for personal entertainment.  Slot machines, etc.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

might it not just be that LL's marketing team think that offering a version of a social casino in SL could be a good way of attracting new residents, who may find they prefer the experience of playing these games inworld to on a web page, and who may even, now they've set foot in SL, decide to explore a bit more and start spending more time and money in-world?

Yep! That was some of the assumptions on the first few pages of the thread.

2 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

That seems to me the simplest explanation, and would explain why the region was launched on Facebook and Twitter.

Ouch, Occam's Razor is sharp! 🙂 

[Love Zhaoying]

5 hours ago, Rat Luv said:

I had never heard of social casinos before, but apparently they're huge and very popular (which is probably why LL has set this up... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) This video explains it quite well!

Some of us are just finding out, thanks!

* kicks self for not Googling 17 pages ago! *

[diamond Marchant]

Holy Poker Chips, Batman! Kudos posters for figuring this out!

This is stupider than I first imagined, due to...

1. Linden Lab is way late to the party on social casino-ing

2. Linden Lab  has the wrong platform for this (and mobile SL doesn't really fix that)

3. Linden Lab may experience a net revenue loss as there will be disgusted former-residents to offset the noob gambling-addicted-residents

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

2. Linden Lab  has the wrong platform for this (and mobile SL doesn't really fix that)

Theoretically, LL could have a "Casino Script" display in the Mobile Viewer window similar to as if it were an "App".

From a Viewer perspective, this just means:  Focus your camera on the "Casino Action" (whether a "machine" or a "table"), so it takes up an appropriate amount of the screen.

Another way would be to just make the "machine" or "game action" a HUD, so it shows in the viewer as if it were an "App".

I hope this makes sense, it is a bit hard to explain without using more words.

[diamond Marchant]

7 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Theoretically, LL could have a "Casino Script" display in the Mobile Viewer window

Yes. But the question is not "could we build this thing?", rather, it is "will it be competitive?" 

If I wanted to provide a social casino on a mobile screen, I would just build that app (which is what the casino companies appear to have done). The SL mobile viewer, repurposed as a social casino, will not be optimized for that purpose.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

The SL mobile viewer, repurposed as a social casino, will not be optimized for that purpose.

Counter-point: SOME mobile viewers, for example Speedlight, are really just browser-based.  So, "optimization" isn't really that much of an issue for them.

[Persephone Emerald]

24 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

Yes. But the question is not "could we build this thing?", rather, it is "will it be competitive?" 

If I wanted to provide a social casino on a mobile screen, I would just build that app (which is what the casino companies appear to have done). The SL mobile viewer, repurposed as a social casino, will not be optimized for that purpose.

How social are "social casino" apps? 

In SL we have a truely social element that keeps many people coming back to and staying with this platform. At the SL social casino, players can talk with each other in local chat, in group chat, and in private IMs if we wish. We can dress up our avatars to feel as sexy, sophisticated, silly or unique as we wish. Other players can remark on how cute or creative our avatar looks, which of course feeds our need for validation and provides an alternative dopamine hit, beside what we get from playing a virtual casino game.

The folks at LL must know by now what makes SL addictive and must be trying to figure out how to leverage these elements to keep SL as profitable as possible for them.  Online apps use the psychology of behavior modeling and addiction to hook and milk players of their money. SL can use social psychology as well.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Persephone Emerald

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Wow.

Kudos to @Rat Luv and @Jaylinbridges for their investigative reporting!

This explains . . . everything.

Wow. Again. This is where LL wants to go, is it?