Legal analysis of gambling in Second Life
By Adam Reuters
Spurred by a Reuters report last week, law professor Anita Ramasastry has a detailed analysis of the risks that gambling in Second Life may pose for Linden Lab.
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.
Ramasastry, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle and a Director of the Shidler Center for Law, Commerce & Technology, writes:
Is Second Life off the hook because it is not itself an online gambling operator, but simply a host site where casinos are among a variety of business? The answer is no - as Second Life might still be liable for aiding and abetting Internet gambling.Moreover, the definition of aiding and abetting set out in the relevant criminal statute is quite broad: It sweeps in anyone who “aids, abets, counsels, commands, [or] induces” a criminal act, or “procures its commission”; and anyone who “willfully causes” an act that, if he had done it directly, would count as a federal crime. And it states that such persons are punishable as if they were the perpetrators themselves.
Sounds like this may be a hot topic next week when the Second Life Bar Association meets…
