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Is this legal? Is it gambling?

techs

techs

Lifer
There is a computer place that has changed over to a gaming place. They still sell and fix computers but after 7pm 5 nights a week they have gaming tournaments. They have about 12 top of the line computers and the kids play against each other in tournaments. For CASH prizes! I was really surprised. My first thought was how 14-15 year old kids who go to a business, put down money, then play against each other to win money (with the house keeping their share) could be anything other than gambling.
Most people I talked to were surprised and wondered if it is legal.
Do you think its legal?
If they could win goods or coupons for free play I could understand it but cash?
How is it different than a casino?
I also wonder what sort of future the business has. Is it a viable businesse model? Will it attract drug dealers? Will there inevitably be fights?
Personally what they do is none of my busines and I don't think its my place to complain to any authorities. They are not bothering me. If its legal, fine. I just was pretty shocked and wonder what you think.
 
Originally posted by: techs
There is a computer place that has changed over to a gaming place. They still sell and fix computers but after 7pm 5 nights a week they have gaming tournaments. They have about 12 top of the line computers and the kids play against each other in tournaments. For CASH prizes! I was really surprised. My first thought was how 14-15 year old kids who go to a business, put down money, then play against each other to win money (with the house keeping their share) could be anything other than gambling.
Most people I talked to were surprised and wondered if it is legal.
Do you think its legal?
If they could win goods or coupons for free play I could understand it but cash?
How is it different than a casino?
I also wonder what sort of future the business has. Is it a viable businesse model? Will it attract drug dealers? Will there inevitably be fights?
Personally what they do is none of my busines and I don't think its my place to complain to any authorities. They are not bothering me. If its legal, fine. I just was pretty shocked and wonder what you think.
Click to expand...

To be honest, I don't understand the problem with gambling either. How much more hypocritical can a state be, when it runs a lottery, but prohibits private gambling establishments.

In any case, I think that if these kids want to use their lunch money to play competitive games against each other, then it's up to them. It's not gambling because there's skill involved. So these kids learn competition, and learn that better skills, resulting from better training, will often bring rewards.

Is that bad? No.

As for attracting drug dealers, that made me laugh. If kids want to get drugs, they'll get them regardless of whether or not their neighborhood lan party has a dealer.
 
This is a competition based mainly on the players' skill, so I wouldn't think of it gambling any more than competing for a pool/pot in a baseball game, bowling, or other sport.

As long as observers aren't betting on outcomes, no gambling is going on.
 
Originally posted by: Meuge
Originally posted by: techs
There is a computer place that has changed over to a gaming place. They still sell and fix computers but after 7pm 5 nights a week they have gaming tournaments. They have about 12 top of the line computers and the kids play against each other in tournaments. For CASH prizes! I was really surprised. My first thought was how 14-15 year old kids who go to a business, put down money, then play against each other to win money (with the house keeping their share) could be anything other than gambling.
Most people I talked to were surprised and wondered if it is legal.
Do you think its legal?
If they could win goods or coupons for free play I could understand it but cash?
How is it different than a casino?
I also wonder what sort of future the business has. Is it a viable businesse model? Will it attract drug dealers? Will there inevitably be fights?
Personally what they do is none of my busines and I don't think its my place to complain to any authorities. They are not bothering me. If its legal, fine. I just was pretty shocked and wonder what you think.
Click to expand...

To be honest, I don't understand the problem with gambling either. How much more hypocritical can a state be, when it runs a lottery, but prohibits private gambling establishments.

In any case, I think that if these kids want to use their lunch money to play competitive games against each other, then it's up to them. It's not gambling because there's skill involved. So these kids learn competition, and learn that better skills, resulting from better training, will often bring rewards.

Is that bad? No.

As for attracting drug dealers, that made me laugh. If kids want to get drugs, they'll get them regardless of whether or not their neighborhood lan party has a dealer.
Click to expand...
If I go to a casino and play poker isn't that a game of skill too? And isn't that gambling?
So if the place replaced video games with poker is it still not gambling?
Or replace video games with video poker is that not gambling?
Just asking, seems strange to me.


 
Originally posted by: techs
Originally posted by: Meuge
Originally posted by: techs
There is a computer place that has changed over to a gaming place. They still sell and fix computers but after 7pm 5 nights a week they have gaming tournaments. They have about 12 top of the line computers and the kids play against each other in tournaments. For CASH prizes! I was really surprised. My first thought was how 14-15 year old kids who go to a business, put down money, then play against each other to win money (with the house keeping their share) could be anything other than gambling.
Most people I talked to were surprised and wondered if it is legal.
Do you think its legal?
If they could win goods or coupons for free play I could understand it but cash?
How is it different than a casino?
I also wonder what sort of future the business has. Is it a viable businesse model? Will it attract drug dealers? Will there inevitably be fights?
Personally what they do is none of my busines and I don't think its my place to complain to any authorities. They are not bothering me. If its legal, fine. I just was pretty shocked and wonder what you think.
Click to expand...

To be honest, I don't understand the problem with gambling either. How much more hypocritical can a state be, when it runs a lottery, but prohibits private gambling establishments.

In any case, I think that if these kids want to use their lunch money to play competitive games against each other, then it's up to them. It's not gambling because there's skill involved. So these kids learn competition, and learn that better skills, resulting from better training, will often bring rewards.

Is that bad? No.

As for attracting drug dealers, that made me laugh. If kids want to get drugs, they'll get them regardless of whether or not their neighborhood lan party has a dealer.
Click to expand...
If I go to a casino and play poker isn't that a game of skill too? And isn't that gambling?
So if the place replaced video games with poker is it still not gambling?
Or replace video games with video poker is that not gambling?
Click to expand...
Well, video poker isn't skill. Real poker is, however. I still don't see the problem. As long as the children don't beat each other, or steal to get the money, they can gamble all they want.
 
Poker is considered a "game of chance" where skill is used to improve the odds.

Unreal Tournament 2004 is a game of skill with little or nothing depending on chance.

There is probably less chance in most video games than in physical sports like football and baseball, though I haven't seen any research on this.
 
Originally posted by: techs
There is a computer place that has changed over to a gaming place. They still sell and fix computers but after 7pm 5 nights a week they have gaming tournaments. They have about 12 top of the line computers and the kids play against each other in tournaments. For CASH prizes! I was really surprised. My first thought was how 14-15 year old kids who go to a business, put down money, then play against each other to win money (with the house keeping their share) could be anything other than gambling.
Most people I talked to were surprised and wondered if it is legal.
Do you think its legal?
If they could win goods or coupons for free play I could understand it but cash?
How is it different than a casino?
I also wonder what sort of future the business has. Is it a viable businesse model? Will it attract drug dealers? Will there inevitably be fights?
Personally what they do is none of my busines and I don't think its my place to complain to any authorities. They are not bothering me. If its legal, fine. I just was pretty shocked and wonder what you think.
Click to expand...

Tournaments with cash prizes based on skill are legal. For instance, there are Chess tournaments that have cash prizes all the time.

The key here is they play against each other. Anyways, why do you care? Did you plan on ratting them out for 'gambling?'
 
Tournaments are held all the time; legally. Just look at the World Cyber Games, for example. It's skill against skill, nothing wrong with it.
 
It isn't gambling, except in the broader definition of the term. It's "paying an admittance fee and then entering a tournament for cash prized paid by the owners", but it just so happens that the business owners make the money for the cash prizes from the admitance fee.
 
Originally posted by: MCsommerreid
It isn't gambling, except in the broader definition of the term. It's "paying an admittance fee and then entering a tournament for cash prized paid by the owners", but it just so happens that the business owners make the money for the cash prizes from the admitance fee.
Click to expand...

That about sums it up. Techs thinks that it is going to attract drug dealers though. :roll: :roll: :roll:
 
Gaming tournaments have been going on for quite some time. Its not gambling , there is no betting. You pay an entry fee and the winner wins. One guy won 150,000$ at one tournament back in November. They don't make money off the admission fees for the big torunaments it is all sponsored by big business like intel, nvidia and verizon. Its a professional sport now and several epople make their living playing this as a sport.
 
Originally posted by: techs
There is a computer place that has changed over to a gaming place. They still sell and fix computers but after 7pm 5 nights a week they have gaming tournaments. They have about 12 top of the line computers and the kids play against each other in tournaments. For CASH prizes! I was really surprised. My first thought was how 14-15 year old kids who go to a business, put down money, then play against each other to win money (with the house keeping their share) could be anything other than gambling.
Most people I talked to were surprised and wondered if it is legal.
Do you think its legal?
If they could win goods or coupons for free play I could understand it but cash?
How is it different than a casino?
I also wonder what sort of future the business has. Is it a viable businesse model? Will it attract drug dealers? Will there inevitably be fights?
Personally what they do is none of my busines and I don't think its my place to complain to any authorities. They are not bothering me. If its legal, fine. I just was pretty shocked and wonder what you think.
Click to expand...


It is NOT a casino in that skill is involved in the outcome, not luck- so it is not a game of chance. It's just as if they entered a contest to be the best paper-delivery boy and sell the most new subscriptions. As for the cash rewards, they are probably hoping that said victor will spend much of that money BACK at the gaming establishment, either in time online, or new hardware purchases.

They COULD have simply made the prizes gift certificates for the store I suppose - but that would inhibit players coming from a distance to enter the tournament.

There already are players that support themselves by gaming professionally - usually they need a sponsor as well (nVidia, etc.). People like Fata1ity, who is well-known for his line of licensed motherboards.

Future Shock
 
I must admit I had no idea that this was legal. I had never even thought about this issue. I just don't see the allure of gambling. I went to Atlantic City once as I was driving by on business and decided to check it out. I played the slots for 5 minutes and blackjack for 10 minutes and wondered why people actually did this. Got in my car and continued home. I buy 2 lottery tickets a week and that's the extent of my gambling. And btw for 2 years back in my 20's I worked summers as a teller in an off-track betting office and couldn't fathom why people were so interested in gambling.
I should also point out the age of the people involved in these tournaments also struck me as possibly not right. I thought maybe 14-15 was kinda young to do this sort of thing, on a regular basis. I can see a kid entering a bass tournament a couple of times a year but not going to a gaming tournament 3 nights every week.

I was also wondering if this was a new idea or if anyone had seen it being tried anywhere else and what happened...anyone?
 
Originally posted by: techs
I can see a kid entering a bass tournament a couple of times a year but not going to a gaming tournament 3 nights every week.
Click to expand...
Kids on a soccer or baseball team might play every weekend for months straight, starting much younger than age 15.

Have you ever played a first-person shooter like Quake, Unreal Tournament, Battlefield or Call of Duty? They are very different from a video poker machine, but you still seem to have the two confused.
 
It's not gambling because it doesn't involve luck. It's just like a golf tournament where everyone has an extrance fee and win money from that, as well as endorsements.
 
Originally posted by: ntdz
It's not gambling because it doesn't involve luck. It's just like a golf tournament where everyone has an extrance fee and win money from that, as well as endorsements.
Click to expand...

Luck is involved, but yeah it's a game of skill not entirely chance.
 
Originally posted by: Meuge
Originally posted by: tweakmm
That sounds like an open invatation for drug dealers if you ask me.
Click to expand...

I don't understand - how do you go from competitive video games to drugs?
Click to expand...
As per the OP:
Originally posted by: techs
I also wonder what sort of future the business has. Is it a viable businesse model? Will it attract drug dealers?
Click to expand...
Important lines in bold.
 
1) yes i would think that it's legal; the kids are being 'enticed' (and i use that term loosely) into competing for a monetary prize. All that it requires of them is, I assume, an entry fee and time for the competition. They aren't playing rigged games or anything so in that sense it doesn't seem that analogous to gambling.

2) that said, I think it is gambling in a sense; the participant, in competing, is taking a risk that they will win prize money (statistically speaking very low) and not lose and be unable to recoup the cost of the entry fee (which unless there's few people, is very likely). In this sense the competition is 'chancy.

The control idea is somewhat persuasive, but it can be easily applied to gambling as well, since in poker just as important as the cards you're dealt is how you play the cards (ie if you bluff successfully you can still win).
 
Originally posted by: tweakmm
Originally posted by: Meuge
Originally posted by: tweakmm
That sounds like an open invatation for drug dealers if you ask me.
Click to expand...

I don't understand - how do you go from competitive video games to drugs?
Click to expand...
As per the OP:
Originally posted by: techs
I also wonder what sort of future the business has. Is it a viable businesse model? Will it attract drug dealers?
Click to expand...
Important lines in bold.
Click to expand...
The part about drugs comes about how I heard about this. The parent who told me about it was said he wouldn't let his kid go anymore since he was copping there.

 
My response has to do with the skill vs. chance logic that some people brought up. It was my initial thought too. . .Because video gaming is largely skill based for the outcome as opposed to chance based. But then I thought about going down to my local bar or pool hall and putting money on a game of pool. For some reason this is considered gambling and is frown on by the establishment owners. . .but pool is also largely a game of skill, not chance.

Maybe it's just that in this case of kids playing video games, the sums of money involved are not of significant enough amount to raise any eyebrows and the store owner is assumedly reporting their cut of the fees as income to the IRS. . .
 
different states have different laws; I'm pretty sure it would be illegal in Ohio, particularly if it involves minors.

And "gambling" does not have to mean games that are strictly decided by chance, there's lots of forms of gambling that involve skill.

 
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