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Is EVE Online Eliminating Gambling Sites?

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EVE-GAMES
EVE-GAMES.NET
#1 - 2014-11-21 11:34:48 UTC
Just had a twitter convo with CCP Foxfour and he stated...

Quote:
Due to legal reasons we cannot support gambling sites with CREST or the SSO.


So...we don't get access to the new kick-ass CREST API OR the new SSO (which would provide a safe and reliable way for users to login to our sites)

Once crest is fully implemented....I can only Imagine the XML API will disappear, and then the IGB will be gone as well.

So basically any site that has gambling....is going to be eliminated.

Can a DEV please explain what the "LEGAL REASONS" are? I don't really understand what legal ramifications there are involved with allowing access to these features for sites that have gambling with fake/pretend currency for fake/pretend items, so some clarification would really be nice.

I just found this out, so I'm kinda pissed right now. I've just spent the last 2 months working on a new version of my site based upon the use of these new features. Now your telling me I can't even access them.

How is the money I pay you guys every month, somehow worth less than anyone elses? Shouldn't we all as REAL MONEY paying customers have the same access to new features?

https://eve-games.net
CCP FoxFour
C C P
C C P Alliance
#2 - 2014-11-21 12:09:38 UTC
EVE-GAMES wrote:
Just had a twitter convo with CCP Foxfour and he stated...

Quote:
Due to legal reasons we cannot support gambling sites with CREST or the SSO.


So...we don't get access to the new kick-ass CREST API OR the new SSO (which would provide a safe and reliable way for users to login to our sites)

Once crest is fully implemented....I can only Imagine the XML API will disappear, and then the IGB will be gone as well.

So basically any site that has gambling....is going to be eliminated.

Can a DEV please explain what the "LEGAL REASONS" are? I don't really understand what legal ramifications there are involved with allowing access to these features for sites that have gambling with fake/pretend currency for fake/pretend items, so some clarification would really be nice.

I just found this out, so I'm kinda pissed right now. I've just spent the last 2 months working on a new version of my site based upon the use of these new features. Now your telling me I can't even access them.

How is the money I pay you guys every month, somehow worth less than anyone elses? Shouldn't we all as REAL MONEY paying customers have the same access to new features?


I don't even remotely understand the legal aspects of it, but from my basic understanding if we support you guys and enter a legal agreement together (the developer license for example) we are subject to gambling laws. Not something we want to deal with. This is something our legal department has been very adamant about.

The XML API is not going anywhere for a long time, and we will not forget about you guys. The work you do is huge and clearly something a large number of our players have a desire to interact with.

I am really sorry about this, but it is out of my hands.

@CCP_FoxFour // Technical Designer // Team Tech Co

Third-party developer? Check out the official developers site for dev blogs, resources, and more.
Kali Izia
GoomWaffe
#3 - 2014-11-21 12:11:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Kali Izia
They've said in the past that they don't want to have to get involved with US gambling laws.
It was also mentioned again in the most recent CSM minutes, basically saying the same thing:

Quote:
Sion - What about gambling and the SSO CREST API?

Seagull / Falcon - If we start supporting gambling then we have to comply with law in the US/EU.

Ali - Does this apply to public CREST and XML?

FoxFour - We don't know who's accessing this and don't monitor it, so there's no precedent in place for that, but if people are registered with us then they won't be able to use our endpoints for gambling.
EVE-GAMES
EVE-GAMES.NET
#4 - 2014-11-21 13:24:39 UTC
Thanks for the reply's guys, and don't worry FoxFour I won't shoot the messenger....you're doing the Lords work getting CREST running and documented! :)

A few thoughts...

I saw a dev blog or forum post of yours, CCP FoxFour, recently (can't remember where it was) in which you could hardly contain your excitement at the prospect of getting rid of the IGB.

If we have no SSO or CREST access, and then the IGB is taken away.....how the hell are we supposed to register users / automate and simplify tasks like making isk payouts, and creating/tracking contracts etc.? API keys? You are, I'm sure, aware of the communities general distrust at giving away api keys to fan sites....this is extremely problematic!

Another thought... What about countries that don't have draconian gambling laws regarding fake currencies and items. For example, I live in Canada....would the same legal hurdles apply to gaining access to the SSO and CREST from my country?

Maybe you could mention that to your legal department and see what they say?

https://eve-games.net
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#5 - 2014-11-21 14:19:05 UTC
Well, if you're trusting the headers the IGB sends, to identify who a character is, you're obviously not paying a huge degree of attention to security. After all, given around five minutes, I can set the same headers in many different browsers, and manipulate them to my heart's delight.

As for authenticating users without the above:
As players to send an in game mail to a particular address, with a particular code. Have your api service pull it, and approve the user. Done. Control of the account proven.


As for companies without the gambling laws, it's fine that /you/ live in such a country, as the operator. However, the clients may not. Which is the whole problem.

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter
Ssabat Thraxx
DUST Expeditionary Team
Good Sax
#6 - 2014-11-21 15:05:57 UTC
Either things have changed a lot over the years, or the legal department is overly-cautious.

As a way of eliminating large amounts of currency from Everquest, the devs set up a casino system, which was both very popular and highly succesful. The inflation problem disappeared very quickly.

So if it was ok for SOE, why is it now not ok for CCP?

\m/ O.o \m/

"You're a freak ..." - Solecist Project
Hel O'Ween
Men On A Mission
#7 - 2014-11-21 17:56:28 UTC
Ssabat Thraxx wrote:

So if it was ok for SOE, why is it now not ok for CCP?


Well considering the size and markets of Sony and those of CCP, Sony might already have done the "legal footwork" to have this OK'ed in the countries necessary ...

EVEWalletAware - an offline wallet manager.
Nerdz Rool
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#8 - 2014-11-21 20:36:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Nerdz Rool
CCP FoxFour wrote:
EVE-GAMES wrote:
Just had a twitter convo with CCP Foxfour and he stated...

Quote:
Due to legal reasons we cannot support gambling sites with CREST or the SSO.


So...we don't get access to the new kick-ass CREST API OR the new SSO (which would provide a safe and reliable way for users to login to our sites)

Once crest is fully implemented....I can only Imagine the XML API will disappear, and then the IGB will be gone as well.

So basically any site that has gambling....is going to be eliminated.

Can a DEV please explain what the "LEGAL REASONS" are? I don't really understand what legal ramifications there are involved with allowing access to these features for sites that have gambling with fake/pretend currency for fake/pretend items, so some clarification would really be nice.

I just found this out, so I'm kinda pissed right now. I've just spent the last 2 months working on a new version of my site based upon the use of these new features. Now your telling me I can't even access them.

How is the money I pay you guys every month, somehow worth less than anyone elses? Shouldn't we all as REAL MONEY paying customers have the same access to new features?


I don't even remotely understand the legal aspects of it, but from my basic understanding if we support you guys and enter a legal agreement together (the developer license for example) we are subject to gambling laws. Not something we want to deal with. This is something our legal department has been very adamant about.

The XML API is not going anywhere for a long time, and we will not forget about you guys. The work you do is huge and clearly something a large number of our players have a desire to interact with.

I am really sorry about this, but it is out of my hands.


You need to have the legal department take a serious look at this. Force them to look it over and over, because it seems a huge part of the third party community might get screwed due to the lazy legal staff you employ.

Why would the US/EU gambling laws apply to EVE gambling games that don't use IRL currency. There is a huge precedence for gambling in games that have been published in the US and EU in the past. Its just bad practice for the legal staff to not look into the law. I mean that's what they get paid for, weaving through the complicated law to protect the company and at the same time support its products. It seems to me that there are only putting in the effort to do half of that and by doing so screw over the largest support mechanism for third party websites.

All I'm/we're asking for is for you to kindly prod Seagull or someone with that much weight, to have someone in legal that is worth a dime, spend more time figuring out how to support third party gambling sites, instead of figuring out a reason not to.
Nerdz Rool
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#9 - 2014-11-21 20:50:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Nerdz Rool
I'de also love some clarity on if the SSO use is blocked for gambling applications, how would it apply to a super site that is made up of a few different applications, one of which is a gambling application. IE if site x has a news application, a tools application area, a gambling application, and a social application, would said site's SSO access be blocked as a whole or would they be forced to not use any data gained from the SSO on the gambling application solely? The only real need a gambling application has for the SSO at current is setting up an account on the site in a way that verifies the ownership of the character. If a site uses the SSO to do this at another stage, IE in creation of their social profile, would we not be able to use this authenticated character ownership database in the gambling application as well? If the website uses SSO for character verification on say the social application and then also allows the account owner to add an API key could we then use the characters pulled from their API Keys to use as authenticated character ownership in the casino application?

This whole mess of access to the SSO could easily be solved by allowing access to gambling sites. The IGB method for verification can be manipulated and any border for entry like requiring a player to deposit x isk into the corp wallet with reason x or send and email to person x with y reason and using API to check these, significantly reduces the chances that a character signs up on the site.
EVE-GAMES
EVE-GAMES.NET
#10 - 2014-11-21 23:06:10 UTC
Steve Ronuken wrote:
Well, if you're trusting the headers the IGB sends, to identify who a character is, you're obviously not paying a huge degree of attention to security. After all, given around five minutes, I can set the same headers in many different browsers, and manipulate them to my heart's delight.

As for authenticating users without the above:
As players to send an in game mail to a particular address, with a particular code. Have your api service pull it, and approve the user. Done. Control of the account proven.


As for companies without the gambling laws, it's fine that /you/ live in such a country, as the operator. However, the clients may not. Which is the whole problem.


Sigh...

Of course headers can be manipulated, and are not to be trusted.

When I'm talking about IGB use for registration, I simply mean getting an initial Character Id to start the registration process. Can It be manipulated? Yes. Does it matter? NO

If a user registered an account with a fake Character, the registration process would find that either the user is fake, or the account would be unusable for the faker...as he has no access to that characters actual account. In which case my registration system has a backup for this.

As a user that is registering for my site, I shouldn't have to wait 30 minutes (at minimum...not sure what the cache style is on mail messages but....) to gain access.

The IGB registration scheme allows instant access and registration....which is how it should be.

https://eve-games.net
Alundil
Rolled Out
#11 - 2014-11-22 00:00:51 UTC
I have no skin in the game since I'm not a 3rd Party dev and am ambivalent on the entire gambling discussion (in game or in IRL or some convergence of the two). But you say:

Nerdz Rool wrote:
Why would the US/EU gambling laws apply to EVE gambling games that don't use IRL currency. There is a huge precedence for gambling in games that have been published in the US and EU in the past. Its just bad practice for the legal staff to not look into the law. I mean that's what they get paid for, weaving through the complicated law to protect the company and at the same time support its products. It seems to me that there are only putting in the effort to do half of that and by doing so screw over the largest support mechanism for third party websites.

All I'm/we're asking for is for you to kindly prod Seagull or someone with that much weight, to have someone in legal that is worth a dime, spend more time figuring out how to support third party gambling sites, instead of figuring out a reason not to.


Bolded/underlined points caught my attention.

Their lawyers are doing precisely what you insist that they should be doing. "...protecting the company and ... supporting its products." They simply aren't doing so in the way that you would like them to. They, the lawyers, have no obligation to support third party gambling sites since those are not, by definition, products of the company they are retained by. Additionally, those same lawyers have no obligation to ensure that 3rd Party gambling sites are operating legally across any/all of the jurisdictions that CCP's customers might reside. I think, rather, that this would be something that the 3rd Party "company" should investigate and then provide that documentation to CCP's Legal team so that they are aware what the rules and findings are.

I'm right behind you
EVE-GAMES
EVE-GAMES.NET
#12 - 2014-11-22 00:36:41 UTC
Alundil wrote:
I have no skin in the game since I'm not a 3rd Party dev and am ambivalent on the entire gambling discussion (in game or in IRL or some convergence of the two). But you say:

Nerdz Rool wrote:
Why would the US/EU gambling laws apply to EVE gambling games that don't use IRL currency. There is a huge precedence for gambling in games that have been published in the US and EU in the past. Its just bad practice for the legal staff to not look into the law. I mean that's what they get paid for, weaving through the complicated law to protect the company and at the same time support its products. It seems to me that there are only putting in the effort to do half of that and by doing so screw over the largest support mechanism for third party websites.

All I'm/we're asking for is for you to kindly prod Seagull or someone with that much weight, to have someone in legal that is worth a dime, spend more time figuring out how to support third party gambling sites, instead of figuring out a reason not to.


Bolded/underlined points caught my attention.

Their lawyers are doing precisely what you insist that they should be doing. "...protecting the company and ... supporting its products." They simply aren't doing so in the way that you would like them to. They, the lawyers, have no obligation to support third party gambling sites since those are not, by definition, products of the company they are retained by. Additionally, those same lawyers have no obligation to ensure that 3rd Party gambling sites are operating legally across any/all of the jurisdictions that CCP's customers might reside. I think, rather, that this would be something that the 3rd Party "company" should investigate and then provide that documentation to CCP's Legal team so that they are aware what the rules and findings are.



Thanks for joining the conversation Alundil, I agree CCP has no obligation to support ANY 3rd party website, But they do....with the exception of Virtual Gambling sites.....for "Legal Reasons" which is an extremely vague reason.

There is a difference between Online Gambling and Virtual Gambling, and excluding Virtual Gambling sites from SOME of their products and services, even though these types of sites are allowed to exist... is where the problem is.

Why would you purposefully deny access to a login system that, makes it safer and more efficient for THEIR end user to use these websites?

In what countries is Virtual Gambling Illegal?

These are questions we would like answers to, and It doesn't seem unreasonable to request clarification as to why they have chosen to go this route, what the actual "Legal Reasons" are, and what future products we will or will not have access to.

https://eve-games.net
Hel O'Ween
Men On A Mission
#13 - 2014-11-23 12:28:10 UTC
EVE-GAMES wrote:
There is a difference between Online Gambling and Virtual Gambling, and excluding Virtual Gambling sites from SOME of their products and services, even though these types of sites are allowed to exist... is where the problem is.

[...]

In what countries is Virtual Gambling Illegal?


IANAL and such, but while you and I and most other video game players might be able to tell the difference, I'm not sure if the laws in various countries, which regulate online gambling (or gambling in general), do already distinguish between those two.

EVEWalletAware - an offline wallet manager.
Grauth Thorner
Vicious Trading Company
#14 - 2014-11-23 17:59:50 UTC
EVE-GAMES wrote:

In what countries is Virtual Gambling Illegal?

In the Netherlands it is only allowed to offer gambling if you have a gambling license. Wether the gambling, the used currency or the winnable prices are virtual or not doesn't matter, because prices could be sold/bought for real money through platforms like ebay, which makes it possible to tag a price in real money to a certain virtual item/currency.

Even if your service is established outside of the Netherlands, the same laws apply if the service is accessible from within the Netherlands.

At this moment it's mostly tolerated though, because it's hard to find the person/company behind a virtual gambling platform. This however doesn't make it legal.

Source: boekvirtuallaw.doc (Dutch)

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EVE-GAMES
EVE-GAMES.NET
#15 - 2014-11-23 21:29:58 UTC
^ Stranger Danger... do not download a .doc from an unknown/untrusted source

https://eve-games.net
Grauth Thorner
Vicious Trading Company
#16 - 2014-11-24 00:08:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Grauth Thorner
EVE-GAMES wrote:
^ Stranger Danger... do not download a .doc from an unknown/untrusted source

Aww come on everybody can trust a public dropbox download! Roll

PDF version: boekvirtuallaw.pdf (still Dutch)
Chapter of interest: "Chapter 7. Virtual Law en kansspelen" (the pages shown in the summary are inaccurate)

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Nerdz Rool
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#17 - 2014-11-24 13:14:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Nerdz Rool
Alundil wrote:

Bolded/underlined points caught my attention.

Their lawyers are doing precisely what you insist that they should be doing. "...protecting the company and ... supporting its products." They simply aren't doing so in the way that you would like them to. They, the lawyers, have no obligation to support third party gambling sites since those are not, by definition, products of the company they are retained by. Additionally, those same lawyers have no obligation to ensure that 3rd Party gambling sites are operating legally across any/all of the jurisdictions that CCP's customers might reside. I think, rather, that this would be something that the 3rd Party "company" should investigate and then provide that documentation to CCP's Legal team so that they are aware what the rules and findings are.


Yeah they are protecting the company but many third party website owners would argue that by failing to support all third party websites they are failing to support CCP's Products. Third party websites are value adding products for CCP. Regardless of whether or not they actually own the product, third party websites increase the overall user experience as well as boost sales via Plex affiliate links, account signup affiliates, and so on. EVE's community relies heavily on third party products such as eve-central , Dotlan, eve-kill.net, and removing these third party websites would vastly reduce player experience. The third party community has become and integral part of eve online.
Nerdz Rool
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#18 - 2014-11-24 13:19:51 UTC
Grauth Thorner wrote:
EVE-GAMES wrote:

In what countries is Virtual Gambling Illegal?

In the Netherlands it is only allowed to offer gambling if you have a gambling license. Wether the gambling, the used currency or the winnable prices are virtual or not doesn't matter, because prices could be sold/bought for real money through platforms like ebay, which makes it possible to tag a price in real money to a certain virtual item/currency.

Even if your service is established outside of the Netherlands, the same laws apply if the service is accessible from within the Netherlands.

At this moment it's mostly tolerated though, because it's hard to find the person/company behind a virtual gambling platform. This however doesn't make it legal.

Source: boekvirtuallaw.doc (Dutch)


Properly navigating these types of laws and making sure everything is legal is a task we are asking CCP's Legal staff to go about doing. Just because these laws exist doesn't mean it is impossible for us to go about with making gambling websites, it means that we have to have support from CCP legal to do so. Some one up at CCP legal just decided it was not worth their time to put in the leg work, completely ignoring the all of the benefits these websites have for the community.
Grauth Thorner
Vicious Trading Company
#19 - 2014-11-24 15:41:17 UTC
Nerdz Rool wrote:

Yeah they are protecting the company but many third party website owners would argue that by failing to support all third party websites they are failing to support CCP's Products. Third party websites are value adding products for CCP. Regardless of whether or not they actually own the product, third party websites increase the overall user experience as well as boost sales via Plex affiliate links, account signup affiliates, and so on. EVE's community relies heavily on third party products such as eve-central , Dotlan, eve-kill.net, and removing these third party websites would vastly reduce player experience. The third party community has become and integral part of eve online.

The third party products you named won't be removed when gambling sites will be eliminated though. Next to that CCP is not, and can not, support -all- third party products because there are rules these products should honor.

Nerdz Rool wrote:

Properly navigating these types of laws and making sure everything is legal is a task we are asking CCP's Legal staff to go about doing. Just because these laws exist doesn't mean it is impossible for us to go about with making gambling websites, it means that we have to have support from CCP legal to do so. Some one up at CCP legal just decided it was not worth their time to put in the leg work, completely ignoring the all of the benefits these websites have for the community.

The problem is that there are too many countries, all with their own laws regarding this topic. Next to that these laws can change over time, meaning that CCP would have an immense job keeping their rules regarding this topic up-to-date. This would simply cost too much money for tertiary operations. Next to that it wouldn't be an option to enable these kinds of services for clients in one country while disabling them for clients in another country.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against gambling services, I just think that realistically speaking it's not a strange or a bad decision on CCP's part.

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I Want ISK
I Want ISK Corp
#20 - 2015-02-17 14:15:22 UTC
Hello everyone!
Just my 2 cents,

There are many games in the U.S. that contain simulated gambling within them, not excluding World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Animal Crossing, Skyrim and loads of other games with either paid subscriptions or completely free, MMO or completely secluded single player. Even games in which the risk for illegal RMT exists.

It would be like saying that game producers cannot incorporate gambling into their games. I see many Texas Holdem Poker apps in which I can pay to buy credits to play more games for fun without ever being able to turn those credits back into real money.

Some countries may find it illegal but the servers are not hosted there. If anything, we could find a list of the countries where it is illegal to have simulated gambling for artificial currency and then disallow that country from visiting the games we have online.

If everyone else has found a way to do it there has to be a way to do it.

Sucks to hear we wont be able to use the CREST API though =\
Was looking forward to implementing that.

If gambling is eliminated, would competitions with an entry fee, like a free-for-all battle based on skill, also be eliminated?

EVE's only gambling engine IwantISK.com
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