Thinking Allowed.

No dice for Second Life. Or at least IN Second Life. Washington Post ran this article saying that they have just made a decision to ban gambling in Second Life.

“Because there are a variety of conflicting gambling regulations around the world we have chosen to restrict gambling in Second Life,” Robin Harper, senior vice president of marketing and business development for Linden Research, which runs Second Life, wrote in a posting to the company’s blog July 25.

The announcement was posted under her virtual persona’s name, Robin Linden.

This was a decision made with sensitivity to cultures around the world for which gambling is taboo (a nice move). Additionally (and more likely the real motivation), they also needed to avoid the fact that it was illegal in many areas, before Congress came a-knocking.

The short article is a funny one though because they throw in some random other facts:

An Australian newspaper published an article this week stating that terrorist groups are training for attacks by practicing in the online world. In Italy, a priest writing in the religious journal La Civilta Cattolica urged missionaries to consider Second Life a new place to save souls.

Now you can’t tell me that’s not a sweet gig for the young, would-be missionary. You’ve been lazing around playing computer games all your life and now instead of heading off to isolated areas, war-torn nations, or impoverished villages to convert…ahhh…just stay in your pajamas, grab a bowl of cereal and go save some souls online.

Maybe you can get some e-mailing done while you’re at it.

Just keep an eye out for those terrorists.