Make Gambling Illegal

[Dirk]

Gambling should be made illegal. No more casino's and no poker table furniture for players to place at their house (no donators either). Instead leave gambling as a racket to illegal factions.

 

LS-RP's gambling scene was an abomination. Players ran (if they were not bunnyhopping) to a dealer in a casino, paid them, then said 'hit' or 'stick' and usually bunnyhopped their way out again. Many of us thought things would improve with the release of the poker system. We thought wrong. Most of the poker games either had little to no roleplay at all. Soon players started exploiting the poker script. It was a way for players to sell their LS-RP money for real life funds without getting flagged. Then came a time poker could only be played at casino's, thinking it would improve roleplay and those looking to abuse the poker script to sell their virtual money for real life funds could no longer do it in private. However roleplay did not improve.

 

LS-RP has one of the best illegal faction scenes (that is a fact). Making gambling illegal could be a huge win for the illegal roleplay scene. In addition to the drugs/weapons scheme, illegal factions should be able to qualify for gambling as a scheme. With a simple script, access to poker tables (and perhaps scripted blackjack and/or baccarat in a future update) is given to faction leaders who now have the ability to place the furniture in their businesses. Factions can be held accountable for players who abuse/exploit the system (as long as a faction is aware of what is going on of course). In addition factions can be held accountable for the quality of roleplay at their poker games. 

 

Most poker players on LS-RP are mallrats (with all due respect). Making gambling illegal forces them to interact with illegal roleplayers. Perhaps they can learn a thing or two about actual roleplay. Backroom poker games? LSPD/SD raiding those games? Stick ups? Amazing. 

 

Pros of making gambling illegal:

 

• creates additional roleplay opportunities for the illegal scene;
• improves the quality of roleplay which involves gambling;
• factions are now 'product owners' and can be held accountable for players abusing/exploiting.

 

Cons of making gambling illegal:

 

• could potentially result in a loss of a small playerbase who only play LS-RP for /poker (good riddance I say);
• legal characters such as LEO risk more than illegal characters (e.g. getting suspended for getting caught at illegal poker games).

 

 

 

[i dont wanna od in LA]

It's more of an IC issue honestly. Depending what scripts are available in this field of roleplay (I assume there's none at launch), it will most likely be addressed in the form of an IC law. I don't believe that all of gambling should be illegal though, no. Having illegal poker games makes much more sense when there's legally operating casinons as well. It is due to the fact that those backroom games usually take a much lower commission fee or whatever. As long as gambling isn't used (or literally abused) by asset-grinders I think it's cool. 

Edited February 21, 2022 by i dont wanna od in LA

[largehazard]

Agreed. Casinos were always awful and contributed nothing, in my opinion. On top of all this, gambling is criminalized in California, with the exception of OTB and tribal casinos. In lieu of having online gambling, you should have to engage in illegal gambling if you're trying to gamble. There's a reason illegal gambling still exists - because there's still a major market for it where states do not provide it legally.

Edited February 21, 2022 by largehazard

[La Tweaker]

My faction's real life counterpart dips its fingers into illegal gambling and things of that nature in real life California, it's something we're planning to replicate and I believe other criminal factions will also try to get involved in things like illegal gambling, it being ICly illegal on the server would be very beneficial for the illegal scene in my opinion.

[Chuckles]

Adding onto the fact that it's illegalized in California, illegalizing it on LSRP would also increase interactions between criminals and the aforementioned civilians who are probably compulsive gamblers. Not only would it heighten roleplay around gambling but also roleplay around loansharking and other civilian-criminal interactions too, much more than the norm which is hiring them to work their legal fronts for an hour or two. 

[betonists]

It's an IC issue. Everyone can literally buy pokerstars chipset online or some random poker set in a local store. The real poker games among the criminal roleplayers happened quite often, it was a mix of almost every mob sending their men to play in set places. As far as civilians wanted to play, they did their own thing, the factions ran their own joints. I see the point, making the games ran by facs so the average joe could get in debt and all, but having script restrictions is a bad way to go.

Edited February 21, 2022 by betonists

[largehazard]

14 minutes ago, betonists said:

It's an IC issue. Everyone can literally buy pokerstars chipset online or some random poker set in a local store. The real poker games among the criminal roleplayers happened quite often, it was a mix of almost every mob sending their men to play in set places. As far as civilians wanted to play, they did their own thing, the factions ran their own joints. I see the point, making the games ran by facs so the average joe could get in debt and all, but having script restrictions is a bad way to go.

It is an IC issue but the suggestion being raised here is a suggestion for the baseline IC laws. Not a script restriction.

[betonists]

Just now, largehazard said:

It is an IC issue but the suggestion being raised here is a suggestion for the baseline IC laws. Not a script restriction.

I'd be okay with that.

[mattmocz]

I’ll forward this to our team who works on the Penal Code and laws. Thank you for the suggestion. Personally, I believe gambling should be legal for few establishments that are licensed and proven to have quality roleplay, and anything outside of that considered illegal.

[Zakaria_Tokatyan]

I hope there will be disadvantages or limitations to gambling in casinos that will push some people to look for the illegal gambling scene. Otherwise, there will be few to no people choosing to engage in the illegal scene when they can just go into a casino, /pay the dealer and hit hit hold and then leave.

 

Just like Dirk says, I feel like the gambling scene on sa:mp was 99% mallrats and insufferable to interact with and the illegal gambling scene was basically inexistent. Personally, I'm sure there are a few factions who plan to engage in illegal gambling and I hope they're not restrained from doing that by the lack of players interested in it due to the legal scene being too good and having no downsides.

[Tomasso]

1 hour ago, mattmocz said:

I’ll forward this to our team who works on the Penal Code and laws. Thank you for the suggestion. Personally, I believe gambling should be legal for few establishments that are licensed and proven to have quality roleplay, and anything outside of that considered illegal.

Gambling rules and regulations would be a great addition to the penal code. 

As well as the need to obtain a gambling license(having to pay large amount of money for it), for legitimate business if there isn't one. All that essentially would make illegal gambling more popular. Underground/backroom games would be more common. 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Tomasso

[largehazard]

16 hours ago, mattmocz said:

I’ll forward this to our team who works on the Penal Code and laws. Thank you for the suggestion. Personally, I believe gambling should be legal for few establishments that are licensed and proven to have quality roleplay, and anything outside of that considered illegal.

My problem with this is that it's exactly how it was on SAMP. The claim was "they're highly regulated and scrutinised" and we all know how that turned out. I don't see any benefit whatsoever for legal gambling. It's just a business for someone to run, like any other. Illegal gambling, on the other hand, provides massive opportunities for illegal factions. Opportunities that do not exist when gambling is legal. Even if you have just one casino, why would you go to gamble illegally if you can just gamble there? It kills the industry for factions.

 

I'd like to see the opportunity for a tribal casino maybe, because at least that would be different and provide something to the server. It'd also reflect California's real gambling laws. Other than that, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be illegal.

 

In future it'd be cool to have online gambling too, to balance out illegal gambling, considering that's where it's mostly done these days. I don't imagine developing an app like that is particularly high on the list of priorities at this early stage though.

[Tseard1]

I understand where you are coming from but I'm not in favor of making an OOC restriction which makes it against server rules for legal role-players to do any form of gambling. I'm with you that the previous gambling scene shouldn't return. Just saying hit or stick and then cashing in is poor roleplay and should instead be addressed. Gambling businesses should have some kind of duty to help enforce said issues. 

 

Now, if it's made illegal per law, then you have something completely different in which legal role-players could still partake in the games, but with the risks that come with it. 

[yekim]

locking gambling behind a subset of factions given the power to regulate who can and cant play? no thanks

 

if you want to gamble illegally in the backroom of a front then do it, nobody is stopping you. the idea that illegal gambling never happened on old lsrp because civilian gambling was too prevalent is a massive copout. you dont need IFM holding your hand in order for you to setup behind the scenes gambling networks

 

people arent chilling out the backs of laundromats smoking their cuban cigars waiting for the door to open so they can gamble with their friends lol all you're doing is artificially limiting access to a script so you have psuedo power as an organized crime faction. theres abs nothing stopping you from doing any of this while pre-existing legal establishments exist 

Edited February 22, 2022 by yekim

[Chuckles]

17 minutes ago, yekim said:

locking gambling behind a subset of factions given the power to regulate who can and cant play? no thanks

 

if you want to gamble illegally in the backroom of a front, then do it, nobody is stopping you. the idea that illegal gambling never happened on old lsrp because civilian gambling was too prevalent is a massive copout. you dont need IFM holding your hand in order for you to setup behind the scenes gambling networks

 

people arent chilling out the back of laundromats smoking their cuban cigars waiting for the door to open so they can gamble with their friends lol all you're doing is artificially limiting access to a script so you have psuedo power as an organized crime faction. theres abs nothing stopping you from doing any of this

 

Maybe I have found myself lost in translation, but the OP's suggestion is to align the laws around gambling in sync with the rest of the laws it incorporates -- based on actuality. This restriction will affect everyone, regardless of category. Legal roleplayers have just as much incentive to gamble illegally than the illegal roleplayers do, the same way they do in real life. Not all "backroom poker games" are like the stereotype you just described, in fact, they're the opposite. Outside of states like Nevada, New Jersey and Illinois, private gambling is a lot more widespread for civilians than the people representing the genre even know or will admit. Just because it's illegal by definition doesn't mean they don't do it.