Second Life Bans Online Gambling

The virtual world known as "Second Life" has provided a seemingly untouchable refuge from the real world for millions of people worldwide since its launch in 2003. Providing a 3D platform for real people to evolve the virtual world, its growth has been enormous thanks to the freedom and flexibility for people to begin ventures that they might not be able to achieve in the real world.

One of the great attractions of Second Life is the virtual currency which can be exchanged or sold for real money. This enabled the creation of many virtual businesses, and Second Life became a platform for many profitable Internet businesses and online commercial transactions. Also one of the more popular pastimes for Second Life residents was to visit their local virtual casino and gamble!

Unfortunately this is no longer possible as real world fears cross into the virtual environment. In a recent announcement, Second Life creator Linden Lab (Linden Research, Inc.) said gambling will be banned from the Second Life virtual world effective immediately. In an attempt to define "gambling", Linden Lab announced that the ban includes any betting on games that "rely on chance or random number generation to determine a winner." They have gone further and included bets that "rely on the outcome of real-life organized sporting events" as well.

The online casino games that will be banned from Second Life include Blackjack, Roulette, Online Slots and Poker, among others. The announcement did offer hope for Second Life gamers in the future, with the footnote that the ban will be reviewed as industry practices, technology, regulations and their affect on Internet gaming change and evolve in the future.

It was always a grey area as to whether US legislation could extend to a world set in a virtual landscape and played with virtual currency, but Linden Lab have decided to jump ahead and avoid any potential legal action against their company in the future.

Part of the problems that Second Life owners experienced were that its 8.5 million residents live in all parts of the world under different gambling laws. Residents are also represented by virtual avatars which may or may not be a representation of their real life persona. With no proof of age or identity required, it was impossible for Second Life to police gambling to ensure that its residents were of legal age. It came to a logical decision to protect their community as a whole by ceasing all virtual gambling on their site. If they didn't take this measure, then they were placing the accounts of residents, Linden Lab operators and the Second Life world in jeopardy from real-life authorities.

This decision is sure to ignite debate amongst the Second Life and online gambling communities as to the freedom of players in such a virtual environment and illustrates some the greater affects of the US online gambling legislation.

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