By Mike Musgrove
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 1, 2007

All bets are off in Second Life this week. The casinos of the virtual world have closed shop after a decision by its founders to forbid gambling in their online society.

"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. The San Francisco company would not comment further.

Gambling, along with virtual sex, has been one of the popular pastimes in the virtual world. British Second Life user Anthony Smith told Information Week, a technology trade magazine, that he spent 1 million "Linden dollars" -- about $3,800 in real currency -- building his virtual casino.

Blogger Benjamin Duranske, an intellectual property lawyer and founder of the Second Life Bar Association, said the move clarifies the company's stance on an activity that had existed in a gray area of the site's rules.

"It is going to cost some people some money, and that's too bad, but folks, get real," he wrote. "You had to know you were on thin ice here to begin with."

Second Life, a virtual world where people create avatars, or alternate personas, is at the center of other controversial attempts to mirror the real world. 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.