According to a post on the Second Life news center on Reuters website, Ginko Financials stopped allowing people to withdraw their lindens, causing concern among its customers about whether the bank has their funds should they want to withdraw them. Ginko then reopened the withdrawals, but capped it at L$5,000 when it had been L$300,000 previously.

Second Life bank Ginko Financial briefly suspended withdrawals on Friday before reinstating them with a limit of only L$5,000 per day, fueling concerns that the bank did not have sufficient funds if its customers attempt to flee en masse.

“We are aware of the withdrawal issues and are doing everything in our power to correct them,” the bank said in a statement on its website at 05:42 am EDT.

As with real world banks, Ginko only keeps a small percentage of its customers’ deposits on-hand at any given time, but unlike real world banks Ginko’s minimum reserves are not set or monitored by a financial regulator. Last year Portocarrero told Reuters that Ginko keeps about 5 percent of total deposits on hand.

According to the bank’s site, it has more than 18,000 accounts holding a total of L$192,275,403. Source: Ginko Financial under fire, caps withdrawals

It was unclear whether the ban on gambling caused any of this, as casino owners are trying to get some of the money they rightly feel that they wasted, especially if they were investing everything they were making back into the casino. In an article at Informationweek, one casino owner had been in contact with the Lindens to see what the impact of the FBI investigation would be and they told him as long as they operated according to local state laws. Then they slammed the door on them.

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Looks like the end is in sight for people earning a living using gambling and casinos in Second Life as Linden Labs has posted a new policy concerning gambling inside SL.

While Linden Lab does not offer an online gambling service, Linden Lab and Second Life Residents must comply with state and federal laws applicable to regulated online gambling, even when both operators and players of the games reside outside of the US. And, because there are a variety of conflicting gambling regulations around the world we have chosen to restrict gambling in Second Life as described in a revised policy which is posted in the Knowledge Base under “Policy Regarding Wagering in Second Life”.

What kind of wagering games are affected?

The policy applies to gambling games which:

(1) (a) rely on chance or random number generation to determine a winner, OR (b) rely on the outcome of real-life organized sporting events,

AND

(2) provide a payout in

(a) Linden Dollars, OR

(b) any real-world currency or thing of value. Source: Wagering In Second Life: New Policy

This is because of an FBI Investigation from April of this year in which they were looking at the legality of online gambling within the virtual world, as noted in a post from Techcrunch. In a post about the investigation in April from Techcrunch, Linden Labs told them the following:

“We have invited the FBI several times to take a look around in Second Life and raise any concerns they would like, and we know of at least one instance that federal agents did look around in a virtual casino,” said Ginsu Yoon, until recently Linden Lab’s general counsel and currently vice president for business affairs.
…
Yoon said the company was seeking guidance on virtual gaming activity in Second Life but had not yet received clear rules from U.S. authorities. Source: G-Men Visit Second Life Casinos, Stay for the Brothels

At the time Valleywag noted that it was still some good publicity because it makes Second Life look more and more like people are pulling in the cash.

But look more carefully. Second Life’s architects, at Benchmark-backed Linden Lab, invited in the FBI on several occasions; and they’re the ones behind this latest news. It’s not like the Bureau could be bothered to call a press conference. Fact is that this counts as good publicity for the over-hyped and under-whelming 3D environment. Any controversy, over illegal gambling or copyright infringement, creates the impression that Second Life is a vibrant alternative society, and economy. Which it’s not. The FBI probably isn’t making an issue out of virtual-world gambling, because the casinos are so empty (see picture). Source: Second Life Calls in the Feds

I wonder if Nick Denton even went in world?

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