Posted by Ban Forum Gambling Games (+270)

coolio πŸ„β”ƒmaziwa (#149374)


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Posted on
2024-01-28 12:23:40

Ban Forum Gambling Games
because we're better than that

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Hello everyone! Welcome to yet another one of my suggestions, except this one is unfortunately not nearly as fun as the others. There has been a recent trend of an increase in a number of gambling games held on the forums. They take multiple forms, but are ultimately all a variation of the same idea. I am making this suggestion to call for a full-on ban of these types of games. I believe there is precedent to do so and I believe they are distinct enough to be able to enforce this ban. I am not going to link to specific games as to avoid making this thread appear as if I am targeting specific people. I am, however, hopefully going to clearly define parameters to be able to argue my point. I welcome all discussion, but please keep it respectful. Additionally if you are thinking, "coolio do you just hate fun?" The answer is yes so no need to bother with that question

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so what is a gambling game, and are they really gambling?

I am defining a gambling game as a forum thread in which participants use either GB or items to buy attempts at winning a prize. This is unlike a raffle in which participants buy tickets for a chance at a known prize, as the prize they will receive is unknown. They are characterized by the differential rates and qualities of prizes (i.e. the majority of prizes are lower quality, with a rare, higher quality prize being the "big ticket" item).

Now the question: are these threads really gambling? And the answer is dear heavens yes. What do you think of when you think of a casino? Flashing lights, bright colors, loud music. These threads are the lioden equivalent of that. They make use of flashy and enticing language like "diamond spins". They offer deals to get your foot in the door. You are most likely to get a lower-level prize, which encourages participants to try again. These games rely on the mentality of "just one more spin" or "i have to get it next time". The majority of the time, participants will receive a prize that is lower-value than what they paid with.

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why this is bad: legal precedent

Now now now. I know what you're thinking: the law?? Yeah, I'm not going to imply that the lioden admins are going to get thrown in the slammer for this. I am sure that the people whose career this is know more about the law than me. I am going to argue, however, that allowing these games goes against the intent of the law. See, Lioden follows UK law. And in the UK, according to the Gambling Act of 2005, minors cannot gamble. There are exceptions of course: lotteries (thats why we can do raffles, but I've already said why these games aren't those), private events (this is a public site, not your uncle's back porch), events at a family entertainment centre or traveling fair (again, this is lioden), or non-commercial betting. Now there's where you're probably thinking ah - loophole! And maybe, yeah, I dont know the law. But these games are primarily played with GB. It's not real money, but it is a premium currency, as in it only enters the game (except in very rare instances) through real-life purchases. I believe this is why it is ok for slots to exist, as it uses SB, a non-premium currency.

*edit: I am using "ok" as a legality term, not as a morality term. I want these forums games banned regardless of what currency they use. I don't want them to stay up if they only use SB

*another edit: For a much better explanation of these laws please read this comment. It is both incredibly more accurate and in depth than my brief summary here


Here's my point real succinct like. These games allow minors to gamble with premium currency that may or may not have been purchased with real-life money. And I'm going to take it a bit further. I believe these games target minors. Not intentionally, of course. But the nature of these games directly appeals to someone with less impulse control. It's why loot boxes came under such scrutiny. This type of gambling is custom made for a younger audience

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why this is bad: code of conduct precedent

But of course, who cares about the law. We got the liolaw. Let me reference Code of Conduct point 1.26: Do not scam players. Now, I can't argue that just because anyone decent at math can see that these game only benefit the person hosting them that there's scamming occurring. What I can argue is that there is absolutely no way to verify that these games are running in a legitimate fashion. See, the implication is that the host spins a wheel, and gives the prize spun. But how do we know that they didn't re-spin? How do we even know what the wheel really looks like? If the wheel lands on a hybrid cub, there is absolutely nothing stopping the host from saying that it landed on 10 GB instead. Could there be no horseplay occurring? Sure. But there is no way to provide there either is and isn't. Offering these games at a specific rate and then manipulating the rate behind the scenes should most certainly be considered scamming. And because there's no way to provide this isn't happening, I argue that it is better to eliminate the possibility of scamming all together.

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This is really long. Thank you for reading




This suggestion has 289 supports and 15 NO supports.



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Edited on 04/04/24 @ 18:03:27 by coolio πŸ„β”ƒmaziwa (#149374)

Ricky [Git gud lol] (#177615)

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Posted on
2024-01-28 23:12:17
I absolutely disagree mainly because there are posts out there that are trying to avoid being scams and show people videos of them rolling the wheel, will be sharing the percentage rate of change of getting things etc.

Its also entirely the users own fault for entering what it an obvious scam. Not everything is a scam and it's not at all fair to be banning what is a good forum game because of the certain ass holes who are taking advantage. Also if the logic is that people can reroll for the winner, they can with forum raffles



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Ricky [Git gud lol] (#177615)

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Posted on
2024-01-28 23:13:41
I will also reread this forum later today as I did skim it so my opinion may change



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coolio πŸ„β”ƒmaziwa (#149374)


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Posted on
2024-01-28 23:25:00
The only way to absolutely confirm that the rolls are legit would be if the host was to be rolling them live. A video can be reshot. Sharing percentages means nothing if the wheel can just be re-spun.

I appreciate people who attempt to run these legitimately, but ultimately these games add no substantial value to the site. They're not worth the effort the figure out which ones are good and which ones are bad



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vertigoat 🦀 | G1
x2ros outlaw (#114297)


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Posted on
2024-01-28 23:29:02
@Ricky
the forums raffle is a bit different though, as someone is still going to win the prize. with these gambling wheels/dips/whatever flavor text someone uses to describe it, the seller does not have to give away any given prize and they can effectively just choose what to give away if they wanted. the raffle forums can choose the winner if they want to be an asshole, but at the end of the day they're still going to part ways with those items. in my mind, there's less incentive to scam people on those raffles, since the raffle runner will be giving away the listed items no matter what. plus, if a raffle winner is always the host's friends, that would probably turn some heads.

as far as taking videos of the spins, what's to stop them from just respinning the wheel in separate videos until the seller gets something they're okay with the buyer winning? that's harder to do with buying mass spins, but if it's only 1-5 spins that's pretty easy to just respin until all of the prizes are shitty. i'm genuinely asking, since i've never really partaken in any of these gambling-type games so i don't know what solutions there are out there for this, other than just banning it to prevent scamming.

the only thing i could think of people doing to make sure these gambling games aren't scams is to livestream the spins, but that's not really easy to implement for every single gambling shop out there.

i also disagree with "if it's an obvious scam, it's their fault for getting scammed!" because other potential scams (advertising your hoard as a storage area, freezer accounts, etc.) are protected as long as there is evidence of an agreement and such on site (it also makes it easier for mods to take action if payment was involved). the difference with this is you can't really prove the seller actually followed through with their end, like you could with the previous examples i used.



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Edited on 28/01/24 @ 23:34:34 by vertigoat 🦀 | [boot barn] (#114297)

Ricky [Git gud lol] (#177615)

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Posted on
2024-01-28 23:57:18
I worded my first comment really weird, so I'm just going to rephrase it:
I think outright banning the games rather than trying to put some more restrictions in place E.g. It has to be approved by a staff member or there should be some tougher rules around forum games, would likely cause less fuss than outright banning them. Everyone wanted the 1sb trades gone but lioden left it up to a user based debate on a random thread, so I imagine if they did lean towards this it would be something similar to that?



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Espenfalls ✧ G1
13/15bo (#127995)

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Posted on
2024-01-29 00:02:31
Hello!

I am neither in or not in support of this at this current time, but I thought I'd at the very least contribute my thoughts on this particular manner.


In terms of legality I don't entirely believe the use of a premium currency in a game such as Lioden can be classified as gambling. In your example you mention casinos, which similar allow the use of premium currency (chips) to be bet on certain things for the possibility of a prize.

There are two major differences from the Lioden threads:
1. The premium currency (in this case, golden beetles) cannot be reverse exchanged back into real money that can be used, or spent, offsite.

2. As opposed to Gambling, which has no guarantee that you'll recieve anything and us af best a slim chance of winning absolutely anything, the threads in which you have mentioned guarantee a prize for every single spin.

In a casino, however, there is no guarantees and the currency can be reverse exchanged back into its original form. Whatever real currency value Golden Beetles have is a precieved value given by the player base. (which is why GB can be bought with SB, SB being a currency that cannot be bought.)

As to the issue of scams, I do believe that in some cases these threads are indeed scams. However an argument on the basis of legality may be going a tad too far to make a point. To be sure, I am not in support of scamming via threads such as those that offer spins. That being said I cannot see the argument of legality being one that can be of any use here, since technically, what is being done on site cannot be considered gambling.

As an added example, when a kid goes to an arcade they get a game card, which they use to play games to earn tickets. This isn't considering gambling because the child likely had a guarantee to get at least 1 ticket, and the ticket cannot be exchanged for real currency again (despite the fact that it was paid for with real currency.) They can, however, exchange it for a toy.

This seems like an issue of morality, and not one of legality. Which I can see where the moral issues start for sure! I think the community, being at least 16 years old older, are capable of seeing a scam and avoiding it. For those who don't, that is entirely their choice.

I believe an example of real child gambling/scams would be Fair games. Fair games usually exclusively run on real currency and are purposely stacked against you. Even if you sink a ton of money into it, you may at most get the small prizes and maybe medium prizes. That being said, these are accepted despite the fact its well know that the games at Fairs are a scam (and despite the fact it promotes child gambling.) Again this ISN'T right and I do not agree with it. However certain threads on Lioden are run much the same, and should definitely have regulations.

I'd be in support of perhaps better managed threads, or an addition of a wheel feature within lioden that can be utilized by the player base (perhaps a premium feature bought with gb, haha) which I think would be the most effective solution. I understand it wouldn't be ideal, but perhaps it could be an addition to branches.

I hope this doesn't come off as rude! I an not very good with words. I think your suggestion is great but perhaps could be improved upon!



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Edited on 29/01/24 @ 00:19:11 by Espenfalls ✧ DR G1 Witch 1.8k (#127995)

Ricky [Git gud lol] (#177615)

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Posted on
2024-01-29 00:19:22
I agree with espen, they've explained it better than I ever could



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coolio πŸ„β”ƒmaziwa (#149374)


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Posted on
2024-01-29 00:25:44
Thank you for your input Espen!

I would like to clarify that I'm not using the argument of legality to imply that Lioden needs to ban these or else they're going to get sued. I bring up the legal point because I believe that these laws are in place for a good reason. I'm simply using said laws as a shorthand for the logic of my argument. Allowing minors to gamble is bad. No offense to all the 16 year olds out there reading this, but sometimes that still-baking prefrontal cortex is quite obvious.

My issue with these laws is primarily morality-based. Unfortunately it is really really hard to argue ethics in a way that's concrete enough to make a legitimate stand with.

And sure, the prize is guaranteed. But the lowest tier prizes are often herbs or carcasses, maybe some shiny rocks. Functionally useless items in terms of value, maybe a couple at most. Sure, we're welcome to allow people to make their own decisions. 16 year olds should be mature enough to sniff out a scam. But clearly, very clearly, they are not. I think the potential of new, young players getting taken advantage of outweighs any benefit these games bring



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Espenfalls ✧ G1
13/15bo (#127995)

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Posted on
2024-01-29 00:34:20
That is entirely understandable, and I completely agree! I don't think scams should be allowed in any capaxity. I would hope that the feature doesn't have to entirely be removed just because of a few people abusing the system, though. (Mostly because I believe there is a way to do it right, but that could be me having too much faith in the community lol)



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vertigoat 🦀 | G1
x2ros outlaw (#114297)


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Posted on
2024-01-29 00:42:06
"I'd be in support of perhaps better managed threads, or an addition of a wheel feature within lioden that can be utilized by the player base"

i think this is also a good concept! i'm not opposed to the idea of the wheel spins, as i'm fine with the slot machine and raffles being on lioden. but as they are currently, the wheel spin gambling forums on here are ripe for scamming. not only do you have the issue of re-rolling prizes or just outright selecting prizes, but people can also have friends "buy" spins and "win" amazing prizes to prove the "legitimacy" of the good prizes. if you stuck this wheel gambling system into the game and out of the seller's control, that would prevent all of these. this would also still allow sellers to continue selling their spins - if a seller was against switching to this system that would be a little suspicious imo since it's functionally the same, minus the scamming chances.



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Edited on 29/01/24 @ 00:46:14 by vertigoat 🦀 | [boot barn] (#114297)

Ricky [Git gud lol] (#177615)

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Posted on
2024-01-29 00:45:21
I agree. I'd rather there be an attempt at controlling it all than outright banning it.



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Espenfalls ✧ G1
13/15bo (#127995)

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Posted on
2024-01-29 00:48:41
If a wheel feature was added, I'd imagine it could have buyable slots like branches and a percentage controller for items, where you could "stock" each section and set a price. It'd mean that lions cannot be given as prizes but raffles have placeholders so I could see placeholders on a wheel(?).

I also recall see someone mention that the exact percentage of each item should be shown and a system like I mentioned could easily be made to auto-configure percentages because it'd basically be a pie chart



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+ | Basil [G2 Jelly]
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Posted on
2024-01-29 03:06:09
Agreedddddd
Bumped!



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Ricky [Git gud lol] (#177615)

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Posted on
2024-01-29 11:50:27
Just putting this here: one of the wheel spin threads has been closed, wont name which, but im wondering if mods may be saying something related to this suggestion sometime soon? It could just be a coincidence though



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Sunny (#248338)

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Posted on
2024-01-29 12:55:27
that would be very quick if they address it, but i suppose this did get a lot of support in just a day



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