

New U.S. rules may impact Second Life, other "games of skill" web sites - ckinnan
http://www.netfreedomforever.com/vote.php

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jamesbritt
Wow. Doesn't this effectively cover the stock market?

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jws
They have an exemption written in, as do insurance companies and fantasy
sports. Pity the other industries that didn't have the vigilance to detect
this bill in progress and the foresight to hire a lobbyist.

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tesseract
So just recast participation in the game of skill as the purchase of an
insurance policy. (Granted, this is probably easier for, say, Intrade than for
something like SL.)

But they probably thought of that and were somewhat specific about the
allowable types of insurance.

edit: I went and read the relevant text of the act. Especially in light of
recent events, I find it amusing that Congress couldn't come up with a
definition of "gambling" that inherently excluded derivatives trading - they
had to do that explicitly as well.

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wensing
I thought one major difference is that in "gambling" your bet is final,
whereas derivatives may be unloaded at will (assuming you can find a buyer or
don't need one).

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eru
I can introduce this feature in gaming - and it will still be gaming
essentially.

