September 25th, 2009
Via The Second Life Herald, an interesting article on gambling in Second Life, in particular the automated single player version of Zyngo. As the article notes:
“…Not long after Linden Lab wiped out almost all existing casinos, something strange happened to the joy of many: Linden Lab claimed that games of skill were not considered gambling, so those games could continue.
Soon after this revelation, a bingo style game called ‘Zyngo’ made by the Second Life resident Aargle Zymurgy was allowed again by Linden Lab – even though Zyngo was first banned as were other game of chance. Linden Lab ruled the Zyngo game was no longer a game of chance, but was considered a game of skill, despite the fact that the game is a simple bingo game with some extra bonuses. The numbers for every round in this game are randomly generated, as well as the playboard itself.
With Zyngo, new kind of casinos popped up, but they did not call themselves casinos anymore and gave their places more innocent names like ‘Jungle Games’, ‘Snoopy’s Games’, etc. The games that are put out in such gaming-places are far less innocent: they cover a range from low roller games up to very high roller games you can not even find in real life casinos. This new so-called skilled based gaming became actually a form of hardcore gambling.
Doing magic tricks with game settings
The creator of the bingo game Zyngo apparently pursued Linden Lab to allow his game with a simple ‘skill-based test’ – he had put out 10 Zyngo-games and set them up as they will produce exactly the same game session on each Zyngo. He then invited 5 experienced Zyngo-players and 5 players who never played the game before to play the exact same game sessions. He and Linden Lab saw that the experienced players produced higher scores as a proof that Zyngo was a game of skill. After that simple experiment, Zyngo was approved by Linden Lab and the show could go on.
This test only focused on the difference in scoring results, and it was a test only for a multiplayer contest where the one with the highest score could win an L$ prize. But the game of Zyngo machines can be set up in many different ways – including an automatic self-running single player mode.
autoplay – pay the machine and the game plays itself
The multiplayer contest mode of the game is actually almost nonexistent in Second Life. There are hundreds of places with ‘Instant payout’ Zyngo-machines that are setup for single player game sessions: if you beat the score set on the machine, you win a certain L$ prize. After some experimenting, owners of the Zyngo game discovered that there is a ‘chart of probability’ to be made about the outcome of ‘instant payout’ Zyngo games set to a certain score to beat. For example: Zyngo owners found there is about a 10% profit to be made when you set a Zyngo with a score to beat of 50000 points with a prize to win of 5 times the pay-in (for example a prize of 5000 Linden Dollars for a 1000 Linden Dollar payment into the game). This chart of probability looks like this:
Score to beat Winning chances L$ Pay-in
Multiplier Prize in L$ 35000 points 40% 1000 2X 2000 40000 points 30% 1000 3X 3000 50000 points 25% 1000 5X 5000 55000 points 20% 1000 7.5X 7500 60000 points 12% 1000 9X 9000 65000 points 10% 1000 10X 10000 70000 points 7.5% 1000 15X 15000 80000 points 5% 1000 X20 20000 This chart of probability suggests two things:
The game of Zyngo is used in such ways that it can not be called a game of skill since winning a game session in ‘Instant payout’ mode depends more on probability and less on skill.
The multipliers used in combination with the high scores to beat are making this a clear gambling device. If one only has a statistical 10% chance to beat the score of 65000 points, can we still talk about an innocent game of skill ?
Linden Dollar farms
No wonder that Linden Lab looks the other way -Â the new casinos are huge L$ farms for not only the owners – but also for Linden Lab.
Where a typical well run Second Life business selling virtual goods or services can make up to about L$ 50,000Â ($188 USD) a day, a successful Zyngo parlor can generate up to L$ 5,000,000 ($18,800 USD) in one day.
These numbers sound unreal, but how else can the owners afford to pay $240 USD per week for classified ads?
Classifieds ads: casino’s pay up to L$138888 ($243 USD) weekly to attract high roller gamblers
Beyond weekly ad costs, the casinos are a cash cow for Linden Lab in land fees – they use full private sims (servers) and pay Linden Lab about $250 USD a month for rental of these sims.
With monthly fees paid to Linden Lab by top casinos running around $1000 – $1,200 USD for ads and land tier, the Lab’s yearly take works out to $12,000 -Â $14,400 USD per casino. At this rate, it only takes 70 – 80 high-end casinos to add $1M USD to the Linden’s balance sheet over the course of a year.
Does simple math explain how automated single-player Zyngo became a game of skill – at least in the eyes of Linden Lab?
This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
