The gambling or not virtual mystery continues

Is it just me or has the major story in Second Life via Reuters become gambling lately? Their main page has recent stories and look what you find:

Complete with today’s story titled: Legal Analysis of gambling in Second Life this makes five of the last seven Reuters Second Life stories about gambling in SL. Unfortunately like every story on the subject I’ve seen to date the Reuter’s story doesn’t really tell us anything new (emphasis mine):

At issue is the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Ramasastry establishes that Linden dollars have value because they can be exchanged for U.S. dollars, and that casinos accepting bets from U.S. residents are almost certainly breaking the law.

I love the whole “almost certainly” bit — that’s like saying I’m almost certainly dead. It’s certain I’m going to die and so is everybody reading this — at least in this current life — but my virtual avatar can certainly live beyond me. Frankly I’m growing weary of people guessing about what is and isn’t legal in Second Life and other virtual worlds.

I read the legal analysis by law professor Anita Ramasastry and noticed an immediate mistake:

Does Second Life’s gambling sector violate the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA)? The creators of Second Life aren’t sure. Thus, at their request, FBI agents have been roaming the virtual landscape of Second Life to visit its virtual casinos.

According to Linden Lab on their own Second Life blog they aren’t aware of any investigation. In fact Linden Lab’s Robin Linden wrote:

Despite reports to the contrary, we know of no law enforcement agency that has opened an investigation into gambling in Second Life.

You’d think a law professor would be able to research this but then we get more vagueness in the professor’s notes:

Is it thus illegal, under U.S. anti-gambling statutes, for Second Life casino operators to accept bets placed with Linden dollars? The answer is probably yes.

Probably yes. Almost certainly true. A dressed up way of saying: “I don’t know.” That’s the true state of gambling in Second Life: nobody knows. Linden Lab doesn’t know. Law professors don’t know. Adam Reuters doesn’t know. There is a tremendous amount of scrutiny that boils down to nobody knowing anything except it might be a problem. Degrees of maybe. Degrees of I don’t know. Risk and speculation is high.

It would be nice for somebody — cook, janitor, law professor, FBI agent, politician — to step up and say: “I do know. Here is the answer.” When I got into Second Life one of the attractions is that I could create casino-oriented games for entertainment purposes.

My own experience with Linden Dollar being “real” money
In the 15+ months I’ve been in SL I have yet to withdraw one penny from the system into my own PayPal account. Every Linden Dollar made has gone back into Second Life — or to pay Linden Lab fees (yearly account fees, monthly tier fees) — including any revenue earned from writing for this blog. I read a lot of talk about how the Linden Dollar is “real” currency because it can be traded into real money. Really? I wonder how many of the millions of people registered and much smaller amount of residents are actually seeing those real dollars? For me, Linden dollars been mostly Monopoly money. I’ve spent around $200 USD of my own money to pay for accounts and yearly fees (Linden Lab the sole beneficiary of those dollars) so if anybody to me is The House in some online gambling arena — it’s Linden Lab.

Maybe I’ll finally be able to pull some money out soon as I do have a current balance (across all avatars) of Linden dollars over L$50,000 (about $174 USD at current exchange rates). But even if I converted every Linden Dollar right now and quit SL forever, that would leave me at a net loss, not gain, since “playing” Second Life.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful I’ve been able to make enough money to cover the fees since joining in December 2005. I’m hoping that by the end of 2007 I can finally post here that I’ve made (profit) at least $1 USD. That’s my goal anyway. At that point I’ll feel like the virtual world side of my business is profitable because, well, it will finally be profitable.

In the meantime however, I’m still paying for Boardwalk and Park Place and passing Go without collecting my $200.

I’ve put up my TD Dice Cube IP for sale
That means anybody reading who wants to make me a serious offer can buy my TD Dice Cube and TD Dice Cube Mini source code including the client list. This means you could own your own working, established game program that is for sale on SL Exchange and SL Boutique without development time.

From a business standpoint, I’d prefer not to deal with the vagueness surrounding what might or might not be legal in SL and would rather concentrate my development efforts on building and supporting other type objects in SL. Minimum serious offer that will be entertained is L$100,000. Also, the new owner must change the “TD” part of the name as a condition of sale. My name and brand is not for sale, only the complete source code and existing client list.

I plan to continue developing other objects and scripts in SL under the TD Scripts brand. Normal business otherwise, I will continue to service, upgrade and fix any bugs or problems for customers with the Dice Cubes (main and mini) until a new owner buys the dice IP.