Online Casinos probed by FBI

Agents from FBI called by the online gambling promoter Linden Lab visited Second Life's Internet casinos. Ginsu Yoon, vice president for business affairs at Second Life, said they invited the federal agents in order to disperse the concerns about the legality of the virtual games offered by the company.

Second Life is a well-known online digital world where millions of users are registered. Also it has its own financial system and money. You can exchange the virtual Linden dollars with real U.S. dollars.

Yoon mentioned that U.S. authorities didn’t present clear rules yet for their online gaming activity. About this subject, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office for Northern California refused to make any comments.

It's easy to find online casinos, slot machines and blackjack which offer poker in Second Life, but is more difficult to appreciate their total value. People familiar with the industry are saying that each of the three leading poker casinos in Second Life is getting revenues of $1,500 per month. The rumors about Second Life gambling coincide with a period of uncertainty in the real world caused by the detainment of a few executives from offshore gambling Web sites.

Most lawyers consider that bets made with Linden dollars go against U.S. anti-gambling rules. It is opposed to the amendments which state about the fact that something of value is wagered. Brent Britton, an attorney specializing in emergent technology at the law firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Tampa, Florida, mentioned there is a lot of uncertainty about this subject because the company cannot be accused of any responsibility or crackdown and nobody knows how the company will react further.

The changes made by authorities to the law in order to prevent gambling illegalities were related only to credit card companies and other electronic financial transfers that make possible online gambling. They stopped companies from using these forms of transactions for gambling purposes.

There is no precedent in this case and also are not known very well the conditions were an online casino can be judged like a real casino. Also, there is no method to check or prevent gaming in Second Life.