Dragonfish, 888’s business to business arm, has signed a deal with the makers of virtual world Second Life to allow players to pay for virtual goods in the Second Life format.

Second Life is an online world which allows people to adopt an avatar or a virtual persona of themselves and live out an online life. Players of Second Life have been able to use real money to purchase the fictional currency, the Linden dollar to buy services on the site including goods and land. (more…)

Tommy Hyland began playing blackjack professionally in 1978 while still in college. That was also the year he formed his first informal “team.” He’s never looked back. For more than twenty-five years, he has been running the longest-lasting and most successful blackjack team in the history of the game. He and his teammates have played in casinos all over the U.S., Canada, and the world. He has used big player techniques, concealed computers (when they were legal), and had one of the most successful “ace location” teams ever. He has personally been barred, back-roomed, hand-cuffed, arrested, and even threatened with murder at gun-point by a casino owner he had beaten at the tables. Every year, the Hyland team players take millions of dollars out of the casinos. And even though Tommy has had his name and photo published in the notorious Griffin books more times than any other player in history, he continues to play and beat the games wherever legal blackjack games are offered. He has also fought for players’ rights by battling the casinos in the courts.

Despite his fearsome reputation, Tommy is soft, polite-spoken, and never stops to be a gentleman. He is as loved by players as he is hated by the casinos. In an interview conducted by Richard Munchkin in 2001, Tommy said, “If someone casino told me I could make $10 million a year working for it, I wouldn’t even consider it. It wouldn’t take me five minutes to turn it down … I don’t like casinos at all. I don’t like how they ruin people’s lives. I don’t suppose the employment they provide is a worthwhile thing for those people. They’re taking people that could be contributing to society and making them do a job that has no redeeming social value.”

After months of development, Onix1 Island has become fully operational for all verified adult members of Second Life. The Xtreme Sports Tower, the most prominent feature on Onix1, offers ten extreme sports, many of which are unique activities in the entire Second Life world.

The activities featured in the Xtreme Sports Tower include Water-Dip Bungee Jumping, a Giant Swing, a Skyjump, a Rap-Slide, Tower-Running, Ripride, an Ejection Seat, a Skyscraper, a Rocket-Launcher and Speed Wall-Climbing. The inspiration for the tower came from David Domenech Foix’s offline project, the “Thunderdome.” (more…)

His avatar had sex with a female on a virtual website…and that was grounds for a real divorce.

In one of those “you can’t even make this stuff up” kinds of stories, a British couple – Amy Taylor and Dave Pollard – filed for divorce last year based on the husband’s completely unreal philandering. Pollard, a regular user on the popular virtual world website Second Life, decided to have some “fun” and arranged for his avatar (an online character created by the user) to engage in wild sex with a female avatar on the website. (more…)

The road is long for many to reach JMU’s campus but only in real life. Thanks to an online virtual world called “Second Life,” JMU’s very own virtually recreated campus is just a click away.

Last year, a group of JMU professors established the campus in the world of Second Life, a world of user-created residents, called “avatars,” that explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade merchandise, property and services with one another using Linden dollars (L), Second Life’s own currency.

Creating an avatar and exploring Second Life is free but it costs to consume, just like in real life: one U.S. dollar can exchange for 265 Linden dollars. A personal virtual island costs $295, or about 78,000 virtual dollars. (more…)

Is an online alternate life for real, and how does it relate to the life of faith? Christian and other faith communicators plan to discuss the latest web phenomenon at a major gathering in Chicago next year.

The hot interactive media topic will be tackled by David Louder, a Lutheran (ELCA) Campus Pastor at Western Michigan University, at the Religion Communication Congress scheduled for 7-10 April 2010.

Focusing on the virtual world of Second Life (SL), the presentation and workshop will offer examples of ways in which faith communities are employing SL to share, develop and communicate religious commitment. (more…)

Grand Rapids, MI, November 08, 2009 –(PR.com)– TaskTroop TV consists of knowledgeable information pieces through video to provide free quality content to small business owners around the nation, which offers tips, tricks and strategic tactics for Internet marketing and business development.

“Immersive media has become a huge incentive for us to go forward in our virtual channel production in order to provide valued content in an enjoyable and informative way”, said Lisa Alexander – Wolfe AKA Second Life avatar Tami Amat, Co-Founder. “Utilizing Second Life as our vehicle for our episodes is not only fun, but enjoyable for our entire staff to participate in. In only a few short days, we’ve gotten pretty good feedback via email from some who have benefited from the content we offer through that medium.” (more…)

The legislature in Delaware has just approved a new law expanding the gambling opportunities in that state. It was almost immediately signed into law by the Democratic Governor who is looking at a major hole in the state budgets and needs additional revenue to help fill it. The new law is intended to allow table games, i.e. blackjack, craps and the “King of Casino Games”, to be played at the casinos sited on the state’s three horse racetracks.

As soon as the revenue splits are agreed with the casino operators – the legislature has allowed 75 days for the consultation – the final approval will be given by the legislature. The games should be in play at the racetracks early 2010. The law also helps prop up the horse racing industry which has been feeling the pinch in the current recession. The move is controversial in Maryland because their attempts to collect revenue through exploiting betting on slots will be marginalized. But tax payers in Delaware are giving their full approval. They accept this source of state revenue even though it is, in effect, a tax on gambling which, research shows, tends to have a prejudicial effect on lower income families.

As a state, this is elevating Delaware to one of the leaders in the gaming industry. As it stands, the state is one of the four, i.e. Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon, exempted from federal laws prohibiting sports betting. At a federal level, Barney Frank recently introduced a new Bill which would keep sports betting illegal online in all but the four exempted states. This means Americans can only legally bet on professional sport in one of the four states or by getting on a cruise ship that sails out into international waters off the US coast. Quite why something should be lawful in four states and a few miles offshore, but not at home when someone switches on their computer, is a mystery no-one has been willing to explain. The law is as the law is. Interestingly, New Jersey is challenging the state exemptions on the ground it is unconstitutional to allow sportsbooks in some states and not all states. If this challenge is successful, federal law will change to open the US to betting or force all gamblers out to sea or back into underground betting which, more often than not, is run by organized crime. By comparison, Australia permits all betting where there is an element of skill, and more strictly regulates games which are purely based on luck. The Australians think it takes skill to handicap football games.

So, as it stand, Delaware is set to create gambling honeypots where people can come to the racetrack to bet on the horses, use the sportsbooks and play roulette, craps or blackjack. There are no residence requirements. As with Las Vegas, people can come from anywhere in the US. This despite the mounting evidence that gambling is highly addictive and can seriously damage the health (and wealth) of the families it touches. But, as it stands, Delaware is pushing ahead enthusiastically to enhance its facilities with online roulette and draw all gamblers.

There is some unwritten law or concept that tells us that computers have contributed to worker and individual productivity. The concept is even embedded in various productivity calculations whereby just getting a faster machine means you have higher productivity.

I question this, as I have been with the desktop computer scene and have had a personal computer—usually the hottest one around—since 1976. My productivity as a columnist is obviously improved by word processing, but the difference between a word processor in 1980 and a word processor in 2009 insofar as my personal productivity is concerned shows no difference. It peaked right away. (more…)

Two avatars, Leto Yoshiro and Enchant Jacques, met in the virtual world of Second Life in 2005. They married online the same year and built a house together on an island they had brought out of the waves that covered much of that world.

In real life, Leto was a film producer from Michigan, Enchant an accountant from England. In 2008, after three years together for the couple, several real-life encounters and thousands of hours logged in, Leto died of liver failure while awaiting a transplant.click here for article