Second Life Shuts Down Gambling

Tech.Luver sends us to The Inquirer, which notes the banning of all gambling in Second Life. Here is the Linden Labs blog post about the change in policy, which is, to say the least, not popular. From the article: "[T]he large chunk of users that enjoyed using in-world casinos and betting Linden Dollars on events both inside and outside the game world will now have nothing left to do. Perhaps more to the point for Linden, the move will cut off the revenues earned from those owning Casino-style islands in the game, the owners of which are some of the top contributors to the Linden coffers through currency fees and land rental."

Comments

Re:End Gambling Prohibition

[Doc Ruby]

Regulating gambling has to do with a lot of things, including just exercising control over people's lives like the Church used to do. Which gets the government all kinds of Church baggage that it should not have, like "faithy" followers instead of skeptical citizens.

Bottom line is that governments have no business regulating compulsive behavior except when it damages others who didn't accept the risk, and when the compulsives damage themselves so consistently that there's a medical solution that needs strong promotion to overcome the compulsive's defenses.