Ingame gambling legality

I know there used to be wagers happening at Virtue League.

 

Wait, what? Are you from Sweden or Canada because according to this post you're from Canada: How to Get Rich Off RMT in Gaming?

 

Well, according to this thread, I'm from Abahgadaghii, Laughganistan. So hmm. I guess the real question is why are you so obsessed with me? Why are 90% of your posts this year about me? Just curious.

 

If you would like an answer to that why not follow the advice of your own disclaimer.

 

There is no gambling here since you can just use in game farmed gold to do everything. Has been already said, portalarium is not part of any real currency trade, this will happens just between a player and another.

 

In some countries, even private gambling is illegal... its a real issue for some people as their legitimate RMT sales (say I want to sell my house for 400$) could be considered illegal revenue because portalarium does not have an anti-gambling clause in their EULA. Unless I could prove that I haven't sold 40 10$ tickets and made a lottery with my house, which is costly to prove in a court, especially against a revenue agency.

I think its not that much of a problem tho... but its nice to plan things like this in advance, game is about ethics and virtue all the more... at least we could have a nice line drawn on what is and isn't ethical.

 

What steps, if any are being taken by playing card manufacturers to ensure that CHILDREN as young as two years old are not using their game to facilitate illegal betting in every single country, and descending into an addiction cycle which has them selling formula for crystal meth by age seven?

Though I'm not charged with enforcing these laws in any way, I am very serious concern about the hazard posed, especially when you consider that playing chips can easily be exchanged for real money.

 

We all know it does happen, the only thing is that if its part of the rules or disclaimer somehow it allows more freedom and a firewall for portalarium.

 

or, rules and disclaimers can act as a relinquishment of plausible deniability.

we're not lawyers, and we're definitely not lawyers versed in hundreds of disparate legal codes.

 

I'm not saying I'm an expert, its just how other games do it, so either they're all wrong, or you're right

Either way I have been told by my own revenue agency to watch for this specifically.

 

you're imagining that plurality of agreement... or the first 5 games i picked are special snowflakes with no mention of it....

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/legal/wow_tou.html
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/
https://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/terms-of-service-en/
http://www.uoguide.com/Terms_of_Service
http://www.valvesoftware.com/terms.html

 

Excellent questions, but as others mentioned it is not the first game to have inbuilt gambling.
Whatever the other games do to get around it will be equally valid for SOTA.

State gambling legislation is nuts in my state, this product is probably illegal for sale.
This product is based out of another country and not sold in hard form in my state anyway, so no problem.
Check the legislation wherever the game holds its servers if you are that curious.

I did not laugh.
I assume if it ever becomes an issue the development team will put some guards in place.

My favorite game to use as every example is Puzzle Pirates. When they introduced poker tables it changed the entire game economy, a lot of people just could not compete with a poker players income by playing the game normally. All money eventually funneled through the poker tables and there were no in game protections against botting, so it was a nightmare. it also indirectly made Puzzle Pirates a small fortune in offshore gambling money i am certain.

Their protection was to put a hold on credit card transactions when a person spent more than a certain amount in real money and force them to sign a waver. I know because i introduced a friend to the game and to my surprise they are apparently a compulsive gambler, they signed the waver when their card got rejected.


For the time being I think there is not enough gambling going on for it to be an issue and the game itself does not encourage gambling for its own profit so i see no legal issues.
Certainly it is something to keep an eye on as the game adds content.

 

hmm...

right off the bat WoW does not permit RMT... thus its inclusive. The problem is that there is no regulatory force to ensure that those gambling deals are honest.

As I said, to me it does not matter much I don't intend to RMT/milk this game, but I know EA had to enter those battles with UO and your source is wrong, the UO EULA is muuuch more extensive than this.

There are often a few layers of those agreements so I am very open to be corrected about this and you are in part right.

Some will deal with it on a case to case basis because the mechanics of the game don't really encourage it... but in a social sims, a second life like we have, it all becomes soon entangled, and then you have to make a retroactive statement to be fair and it becomes a pain in the... paw.

 

Nice discussion we have here and good moderation.

One thing I noticed, is that Steam does nowhere say, that this game is only for mature players, nor the site itself. Most games ask for your birthday, if those contain 18 and up material.
If this game truly is for matures, I find it bit shady tactic to use rating that they only use ( and none else in the industry) and that they have no mention anywhere about limits. Can 13 year old create account? Thats the limit on steam.

Anyhow, it seems that current concensus is that it should be ignored, even if it violates some rules, because the scale is so low. What if this game makes it big? Dunno if its the numbers we should focus.. its the attitude, that because none will notice or care, we can do this..

I'm no way trolling here, just asked maybe a bit provocative question that I thougth should be asked.

And to be clear, for those who think that minors can't buy anything online without super failing parents, I already said, some countries ( like mine), offer simple trade in most of the shops, where you can trade money for spotify, steam, hbo and whatever cards and also on preloaded creditcards like Paysafe.

I admit it, I'm having hard time to accept the full rmt ( you can convert virtual money to real and otherway around) and maybe that is why Im wondering this also. Gambling in this game, really makes no difference in real life gambling, because igg has real and quite high value currently. Right now, I could sell 100k easily for 13$ and I would get instantly seller for it, by offering 16$. I serously can't see any difference, if I use igg or rwal money. I do that conversion all them time, when I play the game. ( should I really buy armor for 300k, or just sell it and buy something extra for the kids irl) orl money is deeply bound to igg and its legal, unlike in most games that you guys/gals are throwing here.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, this is hilarious. I mean really, who the **** cares. If some idiot is going to blow his bill payment buying coin and spending that to gamble in a video game, well, the problem will solve itself when they cant pay the internet bill LOL. I really dont need most laws in the world, I just know dont harm or kill others, dont screw people over good enough. I don't need my hand held playing a video game having some ****head watching and making sure I don't gamble in a video game. And if they did ever try and do that, I bet the tax dollars spent trying to police it would = WAY more then the fines would pay back.

 

I'm actually interested in how this will pan out.

I mean, there's a lot of games out that that "sell" a "random box" type thing. Buy your box (for cash), open it, and chance of something nice/valuable but you usually get trash.
Surely this is a form of gambling also? If so how have these games/publishers circumvented the gambling argument? Maybe they have an 18+ rating? I don't know the legal ins and outs.

I can see the point though. Gold = money, gambling = illegal for underage, therefore gambling in game should be illegal. The argument is valid.

Of course, then uh, wouldn't the lot raffle also be illegal?

*scratches head*

While on the surface, I don't think any of this is a big deal, I expect there's someone out there who would mortgage their house, blow all their money in game gambling, and then try to file a lawsuit or whatever. So I think its important for Portalarium to protect itself from that possibility, however unlikely it is.

 

You completely and totally missed the point, lol... glad it makes you laugh so hard, if you're not concerned thats all, goes without saying

 

The problem isn't a game problem, it does not matter indeed that there is such services, the forum is such a service that allows us to sell for real money.

But it matters if the game regulates the value of gold and COTOs externally, and then says they wash their hands from further regulation. So a line can be drawn where the actual moderation of the exchanges take place.

For example in canada ALL legal registered gambling including online MUST give back something like 96% of what they take in, there is someone that makes sure this AND the RNG is capable of handling the scale up/scale down of such behavior.

The integrity of the whole system thus makes the gambling ethical and easy to properly regulate and tax.

I don't work for the taxman, I'm just saying that they will look into this and at the same time it might serve as a warning for some, because as I've said, sometimes they will sneak in between your intention and your actions and say you are doing indirect gambling, which has happened recently and was covered in the news when paypal was forced to hand over all canadian accounts to the revenue agency, yes including the personal details of every transaction.

So to me, its such an issue that must be prevented before the venom seeps in. There is a reason those laws exist and even if they are sometimes unevenly applied they still serve to protect the service provider AND his clients.