The End is near SL!
as some of you may have read on the LL blog from two days ago - Casinos, Gambling, Sploder, Lucky Chair - all of the things rewarding you with money by " luck " are no more in SL!
and if you still do it, or get caught or someone tells on you - your ass is going to be in major trouble, dealing with your state laws, taxes, and ban from SL.
i thought at first its another LL scare, just like the age verfication they'd announced a few month back, through some 3rd party age verifier.
but no, this time LL was serious, as in what they call " wagering ".
i was a avid gambler'ette, more sporadic in these past few month, but at one time i was pretty much addicted to these " easy money machines ", lost hundreds of rl dollars and gained little but some back.
one of my last big gambling wins was a nice chunk which allowed me to buy the land i have in Vodou ( next to the Crackden )
but as of lately, i made it a habbit to gamble small but efficient to make some money to pay my land tier fees. and it sure helped. a couple hundred L's here and there paid for tierfees or bought me land and clothing.
i gambled last night, i won good but lost again. i thought, fuckit this is all goingto end soon " maybe ". but the maybe was a definetly as of today! when i logged into sl and checked on most popular places - most if not all BIG casinos went boum. all of them closed down! from ace, to goldrush ( my favorite ), to 12 monkeys, 777 gambling - these places are all gone.
i flew to the landmarks at the popular 20's, only to find myself in between bushes and terraformed empty grasland.
wow........i mean i was really really shocked to see everything gone gone gone. i went to about 20 some places, with traffic, that most places can only dream off and its now nothing but an empty spot.
some of the ads, that were in the most pop picks, were almost sad. a guy holding his daughter, saying " he will find another way on how to feed his daughter". that made me really sad to see this.
some of the casino ne' sayers may say ' well get a dam rl job like we all do '. but get real people. these casino owners worked just as hard if not more then any of us holding a rl job. because once we close the door and get into our cars or bus or tram, we are going home, and enjoy our time in sl. while these guys probably been at work for more then 12 hours already. yes, we all know casino's make money of the addicts, the notorious gamblers. but we all also knew what we were getting into, upon entering a casino. its a 50/50 chance - you win - you lose. name of the game.
now the casino's pulled their plugs big time and left in hordes. i can not imagine how much these guys paid in private sims, in advertizements, in dealing with retarded customers.
i thought this must feel like the " black friday" back in the days, when the stockmarket broke down - some people lost their rl income and now sitting on land that will be hard to even sell. regardless what the traffic is/ was - thats a gone bye by no more.
the economy as it is right now in sl is a inflation. due to the fact, that resell business's sell shit to every joe and shmoe, for low prices or even free. people are stealing textures and skin textures from big designers to make a ' freebie or resell item' for the next one. people don't care about the designers work anymore. it's a dam hustle for pennies on SL right now.
land doesn't sell as it used too, because some sim owners, make 12 some plots in their ancient sims, sell these plots for free and get their tierfee plus some extra $L from their residents. the fear, why most people don't buy from private sims anymore is because the sim owner can pull the plug at any given time and you will lose your investment of rl $.
yet the casino guys and their customers, this is a biggie LL. in the end i am sure LL will bite their dam knuckles, because they are losing millions of rl $, due to the business's moving out of sl.
i guess, its not as ' live your 2nd life, do what you want, be what you always wanted to be " anymore, because LL is probably getting hammered with lawsuits from left to right, first because of ageplay ( hence the scream for age verifications ), second, gambling is illegal in the usa, and as it was said the fbi has their hands in " game " to find violaters.
sl, this is not good, not good at all...i would really like to see the $L statistics from 2 days ago and compare those to a month ahead. malls will shut down, due to no gambling traffic, small and big business's are affected.
i am affected, and you are maybe too.
what's next LL? escorts? those are the ones i thought would have to go first out of sl.
and imho, should be the first getting out of sl. there are many online websites where you can sit your fat ass on a live webcam and charge some deprived fool some money to see you shaking your titties. yet it is easier in sl, you don't need your own website, no you just place an ad and tell them " i have skype and a webcam " and voila, business is going. and it seems its going well for most of them.
i am almost thinking homeland security has entered SL, we are now all being watched on what we do, and if we do wrong - report us to the big brother.
someone has mentioned in the comments about the pertaining LL blog, that people will make underground casinos, something like selling moonshine in coffecups?
but how is that suppose to work. the casino owner and the gambler are not friends. they are actually enemies. to see if you can beat the casino owners machine. where is the gambling thrill when you know you can only win limited money at some underground establishment. yes, its not the same.
and who knows, there may be snitches or a disgruntled " underground member " who blackmails the underground casino owner for more money or else.
it is a no win situation and to be honest - you LL just shuffled your own dam grave!
(click on each pic to enlarge and read)
gala!

Comments
We had to cancel the employment of 8 people at Charms immediatly, and most likely 3 more soon.
Without income we now made a loss about 1.000.000 L$/month and the machines we bought - and which are useless now - costed twice as much.
I can't flame Linden Labs for this, because I believe they didn't make this step because they would like a vanilla SL. But the FBI was involved and I guess even Linden Labs don't dare to mess with them..
myg, i have been in contact with Ah as well, and told him also that i am very sorry that this happend. i know you and ah are not in war.
actually kinda funny, i was in togol and liked his music stream and messaged him a few days ago, so we talked and i was trying my hardest to sell him some land from a friend of mine. we all sat down and talked. ( and i am so glad he didnt buy it now, i would feel like shit after this dilemma)
he did indeed laughed when you kicked that camper upside her head. he told me he's gotten 14! im's from her, acting like she got kicked in the head in rl. he really likes you myg and said you are an exellent writer :) which is so so true.
but this is sad indeed.
read my update on an interview i took last night. its hillarious and sad at the same time.
vanny, wow......just wow... this is terrible and i have some statistics from a lawyer i met last night in sl and it wil spin your head.
this is affecting everyone, and to take peoples jobs and income yes that hurts. we work in sl so we don't have to pay our tierfees out of our pockets. now it makes you think twice... should i buy some L's or should i just sell?!
regarding the fbi, vanny they have been digging around in LL for a long time. remember the LL blog about the child av's having sex and the german ARD put that all over the Fernsehen.
thats when things really got iffy for LL. and now the gambling...but i am going to write an blog on what happend last night vanny. read up on it..its quit interesting.
Wow... I'm flabbergasted. This probably explains why my lucky chair attachment wasn't working the last few times I logged in.
And why scads of people, places, and things that had been around for months... had suddenly disappeared.
Wow.
I should probably log in more, catch the news of what's going on. After the "age verification" scandal, though, I was really loathe to do so. Anyway, thanks again for posting this.