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The BBC is reporting that two UK YouTube video creators have been charged in relation to online gambling:
Two men have appeared in court charged with offences under the Gambling Act in what is believed to be the first prosecution involving betting on video games.
Craig Douglas and Dylan Rigby, who are both from Essex, are charged with promoting a lottery and advertising unlawful gambling.
Mr Douglas makes gaming videos on YouTube under the pseudonym Nepenthez.
He is also charged with inviting children to gamble.
There is more coverage on engadget
The two allegedly used their online presences to push lotteries and "unlawful gambling" in FIFA 16 matches through bets with in-game coins. Douglas is also accused of encouraging underage gambling by refusing to warn viewers that bets were only for people 18 and over.
Both Engadget and PCGamesN highlight that Douglas (Nepenthez) was aware of the issue, but had not seen this as a problem:
Douglas didn't seem worried about the law back in June 2015, when he replied to a tweet warning him of the dangers of not indicating the site was for people over 18, saying, "Let us worry about that kind of stuff, yeah. Jesus, lmao. Go annoy someone else, somewhere else."
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday September 19 2016, @07:33PM
This seems to be gambling as much as the "gambling" that you could do inside a virtual casino for a plot device then. Like, win $10k in the casino before you can go see the boss.
TFA:
FFS, this isn't even remotely gambling. Nothing in the article indicated how these men were going to convert the in-game coins to actual currency that can be used to purchase goods and services made in the real world. The only people receiving the money are the app owners themselves.
These are two adult men running a virtual gambling establishment to make virtual profit. They're not criminal masterminds, even if they can find some sucker in real life to pay them real money for some in game equipment, when that person can just pay the app developer for the coins direct to buy said equipment.
In fact, the most horrible thing in the entire article are the in-game coins themselves. Throw pay-to-play game developers off a cliff first :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @08:02PM
> Nothing in the article indicated how these men were going to convert the in-game coins to actual currency
Are you really so credulous as to believe that there isn't a black market for in-game coins?
Come on man, you wrote that entire post and you didn't even think to do a google search?
Here's just one site, took me 30 seconds with google:
http://www.mmobux.com/compare/ff16/fifa-16-coins [mmobux.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @08:12PM
What they bet with doesn't really matter. If people want to use their own money to place bets, I don't really see the issue. But of course, authoritarian governments all over the world want to control our lives, so they do see the issue.