It was always pretty clearly illegal under US law and I’m surprised it took this long but Linden Labs has finally banned gambling in Second Life.

Reading the user comments is instructive and two things pop out at me from them.

  1. Many users demonstrate a certain hostility to the puritanical culture of the US, blaming it for banning what is legal in many places in the world (as a US citizen who has zero problem with gambling I might point out to them that banning free expression and outlawing things like a swastika because it’s illegal in, say, Germany, is far more offensive to me a ban on gambling. The right to be a fool and throw away your money rates a lot lower than the right to express yourself on my personal scale of important freedoms.) Comments include, “The USA’s Christian Taliban wins again!” and, “Move your servers to Europe. This is absolutely ridiculous.“
  2. Many users are unable or unwilling to distinguish between activities they are actually engaging in, such as gambling, and activities they are just pretending to be engaging in, such as prostitution. Comments include, “What’s the difference between escorts and gambling? It’s real money being used, you’re very naive if you think escorts aren’t next,” (Uh, yeah, who is being naive here?) and, “I wonder if the next hit will be on us escorts, put that prostitution is, too, illegal in the USA.”

There were some supportive comments as well, generally pointing out that Linden has no practical choice in the matter. Moving to the Isle of Man or whatnot is hardly worth it when a ban on gambling isn’t a game-ender for Second Life.