Is online gambling for points legal when those points can be used to purchase merchandise? Say I bet on something, but the prize for winning is points instead of cash that you were freely given daily. You can also buy more points if you want to play more, but it is not required. However, you could use these earned points to buy coupons or gift cards. Would this be considered gambling under law?
Yes, this is gambling. The coupons have a value; gambling is the wagering of something of value. As to if it is illegal gambling, that would depend on the law in the jurisdiction where it takes place: for an internet transaction this could be the jurisdiction of the website owner or the user or both. As an example: in Australia, the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 is administered by the Department of Communication and the Arts, it provides: Any game of chance, including games of mixed chance and skill played over the internet, is prohibited under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 if it’s provided to someone who is physically in Australia. The Act defines a gambling service as: gambling service means: (a) a service for the placing, making, receiving or acceptance of bets; or (b) a service the sole or dominant purpose of which is to introduce individuals who wish to make or place bets to individuals who are willing to receive or accept those bets; or (c) a service for the conduct of a lottery; or (d) a service for the supply of lottery tickets; or (e) a service for the conduct of a game, where: (i) the game is played for money or anything else of value; and (ii) the game is a game of chance or of mixed chance and skill; and (iii) a customer of the service gives or agrees to give consideration to play or enter the game; or (f) a gambling service (within the ordinary meaning of that expression) that is not covered by any of the above paragraphs. The Act provides exemptions, however, based on the small amount of information in your question its hard to tell if any would apply. Broadly, the exemptions allow for certain types of gaming to be licensed/regulated. The Act applies to any service that may be accessed by people in Australia irrespective of where it is in the world.
The European laws have specific sections regarding digital goods. The following two passages are relevant to you: From Returning unwanted goods: Warning! Please note that you may not use goods that you have received before deciding to withdraw from the purchase. The right to withdraw exists to allow you to examine the product in the same way as you would in a shop, not to give you 14 days free use. Be aware also that more specific rules apply to digital content (e.g. downloading or streaming music or video). From Shopping online: Digital content Specific information requirements apply when you buy digital content online, e.g. when downloading or streaming music or video. Before you make the purchase, you must also be informed how the content operates with relevant hardware/software (interoperability) and about its functionality, including whether any geographical restrictions apply to the use of the content and if private copies are allowed. You also enjoy the right of withdrawal within 14 days from concluding the contract for online digital content. However, once you start downloading or streaming the content you may no longer withdraw from the purchase, provided that the trader has complied with his obligations. Specifically, the trader must first obtain your explicit agreement to the immediate download or streaming, and you must explicitly acknowledge that you lose your right to withdraw once the performance has started. So yes, the law specifically allows you to waive that right when purchasing digital goods. So long as Steam has correctly advertised the product's system requirements and other key details, you lose your right to withdraw from the purchase the moment you start downloading it to your system.
If the employee has the choice - bonus and membership, or no bonus - then I expect the offer to be legal. Since it is a real bonus and part of your salary you will have to pay income tax on it. What might be illegal, but not your concern, is if your company tells investors how well the company is doing, and how well the membership scheme is doing, when in reality 80% of members are employees paying effectively nothing.
You cannot use a trademark in a way that may cause confusion that your goods and services are associated with or endorsed by the trade marked goods and services. If you are clear that they are not then you shouldn't have any problems on that front. You also cannot defame the brand: that is make derogatory comments that are not true. On a practical note, when Pepsi (for example) sends you a cease &amp; desist notice, what are you going to do? They can go to the petty cash tin for $2 million to make your life a legal hell for 18-36 months: how much do you have to defend your rights?
Yes, you can. An excellent example is this very website - at the bottom of this page you will find a series of links in the footer, one of which is &quot;Terms of Service&quot;. I think you will agree that most people using the Law SE are making no money from it or paying no money to use it and yet the terms of service sets out in black and white what a user of this site can do, and what the repercussions can be if they breach the ToS, so it serves a purpose as an excellent example for your question.
Is it legal to sell currency at a price lower than face value? Yes. In fact, to donate is the act of transferring for free the ownership of something. Outlawing a transaction that is less extreme than a donation would be inconsistent with the lawfulness of donations. A significant departure from the market exchange rate does not affect the validity of currency exchange. A &quot;sale&quot; of currency in terms of itself is not illegal, since the transaction can be viewed as a combination of two transactions performed instantaneously and involving the fiction of an intermediary currency. Offers of currency for less than face value also happen very often when transacting the bonds issued by a country's central bank. Any two parties can transact those bonds in secondary markets. The scenario you describe obviates redemption periods, fluctuation risks, and various formalities, but those differences are inconsequential from a legal standpoint.
This would be entirely dependant on the jurisdiction. The things that would need to be legal to make this transaction legal are: Is the sexual act legal? Is gambling legal? Ongoing consent by both parties To make this an enforceable contract, in addition you would need: Sexual acts to be valuable consideration, basically, is prostitution legal? The fundamentals of a binding contract: intention, legality of objects etc.
Of course, the credit company sets a limit on the cash back every quarter and thus no one can get unlimited money this way. That's why it's &quot;legal&quot;. But that's not the correct term to use for what's going on. Yes, it's legal under general banking and finance regulations for banks to make cashback offers like that, even if it appears they lose money. A bank isn't going to run a cashback program that is illegal; they'd lose their banking license. What's the sense of that? They're not going to run a cashback program that looses them too much money, either. A better way to think of the cashback system and the way to game the system of 4% by returning purchases it is to realize that it allowed under the Terms of Service of the credit card and issuing bank. They get people to sign up for cards and use them by enticing them with money. And the bank has set a limit to the total cashback each quarter; the bank is smart enough to make terms that have no loopholes, yet still make them money. And, if you read the Terms, I'm sure there is a clause that says the bank can change the terms at any time, and you agree to those terms by default or by simply using the card. The bank can decide at any time to stop the program for certain customers if they abuse it, i.e. try to max out the cashback each quarter. So the idea of this being illegal or fraud isn't the case here; the idea is that it is legal as the bank sets their cashback rules under federal and state regulations, and can change them, when needed.