What&#39;s the difference between &#39;gambling&#39; at an arcade or a carnival and gambling at a casino? I've seen this asked a million times on quora and reddit, but the answers don't seem so good. As for (law) stackexchange, it seems this has been asked only once in a case where apparently you can't lose. Scope: Focus on games where you can lose (re question above). Like you don't get any tickets. Or you don't get enough tickets to win something. Not every game in an arcade gives tickets like when you play time crisis or house of the dead. Exclude those. Focus on the ones where you do get tickets depending on your performance or luck (or both). So far some answers I've seen involve: Technically the prizes you get at arcades aren't money. Sub-question 1: Though you could sell the prizes? The prizes' total value doesn't exceed the cost of obtaining such prizes. Sub-question 2: And if they did? Something about games of skill vs games of chance, typical terms in gambling law, but these terms kind of bore me whenever I ask/read about gambling (eg this), so I didn't read further. Please avoid bringing this up if you don't mind. It's really boring.
Jurisdictions vary but, in general, gambling involves wagering something of value in a game of chance to win something of value. “Something of value” is usually interpreted broadly but it must usually be something that can, at least in theory, be sold for money. So, skins in a popular online game qualify if there is a secondary market for their trade. However, a mother’s love isn’t. “Game of chance” versus game of skill is a continuum. So, for example, Snakes and Ladders is a game of pure chance - it can be played equally well by an automaton as a human. Go is a game of pure skill - it requires a human brain or an extremely sophisticated algorithm to play well. Sport is considered a game of skill so competing for prize money is not gambling even if there is an entry fee. However, wagering on the outcome of sports is gambling even though it requires considerable skill to do well. Arcade and carnival games avoid gambling laws by: primarily being games of skill (e.g. a shooting gallery); by giving everyone a prize, the vast majority of which cost less than the price of entry. This is the “loot box” solution and really nudged the line; by being exempt, either explicitly or by a long period of tolerance by the authorities.
Is he committing a crime in Albania? It would help if you posted the statutes that regulate or prohibit betting, since the terms thereof would shed light on the legal definition (aka prima facie elements) of betting and/or the legislative intent behind those statutes. Absent that information, your description reflects that most certainly the Albanian is committing a crime. The Albanian's conduct matches --at least-- the ordinary meaning of betting: he is not disbursing (or promising to disburse) money merely for fun or leisure, but for the prospect of possibly profiting from an uncertain event of which he officially has no control. Doing it through a third party located in another country changes nothing in this regard. Am I committing a crime in Italy? The Italian might be considered an accessory of that conduct being classified as criminal in Albania. Thus, facilitating activity that is prohibited in Albania could turn out to be problematic even for the Italian. Furthermore, even if betting is legal in Italy, the Italian might be in trouble under the laws of Italy if taking money (without the requisite license) from someone else to make bets constitutes unauthorized business of gambling. The condition that the Italian would retain a portion of any profits makes the business (or for-profit) element quite evident.
Theft is universally a crime in virtually every jurisdiction. Insofar as a state has a criminal code and a functioning judiciary, theft will always be a crime. It is also a basic legal principle that theft is a tort as well (in other words, a civil wrong incurring damages to an individual that can be remedied in a court of law). A key part of the problem in failing to make theft a crime, is that in the absence of a substantive penalty in terms of a fine or imprisonment, theft becomes a low-risk, high-reward activity where the maximum penalty is simply the repayment of stolen goods (with relatively minimal loss). This fails to provide an effective deterrent to this socially frowned-upon activity, and rates of crime would skyrocket. It is appropriate, therefore, to make theft a crime (and all jurisdictions do so), as all pillars of criminal justice immediately apply. Edit: As @/JBentley correctly points out, penalties do in fact exist in civil law. That said, the power of incarceration, perhaps in this case the ultimate deterrent, is largely unavailable in civil cases. The ultimate point - that theft is rendered a more sound and legitimate enterprise based largely on gambling - remains the same. Additionally, not all individuals have the time or effort to file small claims and follow cases to the end. Making theft a tort-only offense would cause extraordinary difficulties in enforcement as many would consider the loss of perhaps a small article relatively insignificant compared to filing in small claims court.
You present ordinary fact testimony regarding how the winner was actually selected and then you hire an expert witness to conclude that this process is sufficiently close to random for the purposes for which it is being used. In some cases of &quot;safe harbor&quot; random selection methods like rolling dice, drawing cards, drawing lots, pulling the short straw, flipping a coin, activating a random number generator, pulling a slip out of a hat, etc., you could dispense with the expert testimony because there is case law already establishing that the method in question counts as a random method of selection.
The reason is 17 USC 106: the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following... (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work The original picture is the underlying protected work. The ASCII reproduction is a derivative work. If you get permission to make the derivative work, it is okay. Otherwise, it is copyright infringement. There is an escape clause, "fair use", which amounts to taking a chance that you won't be sued and then arguing that you didn't do them any prohibited harm. If you make any money off of the game, you have a major strike against you. I suggest reading the fair use FAQ; basically, it is really hard to know how a fair use defense will fare, but based on prior cases, I'd say it's infringement, not fair use.
The exact procedure varies from one district to the next, but generally speaking, it is essentially by lottery. The procedure is typically spelled out in the court's local rules. Jump to page 105 of SDNY's local rules for an example. The lottery system is not entirely random, though. Frequently it is weighted to make it more likely that a case is assigned to a judge from the district's courthouse nearest to the parties, or to make it less likely to be assigned to the chief judge or a judge on senior status. There are then various other rules governing assignments of cases to new judges or visiting judges, but those typically don't happen when a case is originally filed.
I have beaten all but one of my traffic tickets just by going to court. In one case, the judge threw out the charge because he couldn't read the officer's handwriting on the ticket. In another, the officer charged that I was parked in a "no parking" zone on a particular street (at night), but gave a cross street where parking was, in fact, allowed.
What is the legality of someone putting a virtual hot spot on your property without permission? I know we are in uncharted territory but how would this compare to setting up a contest that would require going on your property without permission? The existence of a game does not authorise entrance to private property, barring some agreement with the owner. That is - if it is trespassing without Pokemon Go (or, for that matter Ingress), then it is trespassing while playing them. That being said, the creators of the game are free to place their in-game targets anywhere they please, and it is hard to imagine a scenario where they would be liable for their users' actions, unless they have not taken reasonable steps to prevent their users from doing so - Niantic clearly instruct their users to respect the law and also, only require that their users be within a certain distance of these points, not actually be at them. Is it currently legal to say Go to person X house and touch a tree? If not, does the current law extend to augmented reality? Nope, unless it can be done without entering private property (which includes the airspace above the property, to some extent). And there are no special cases for augmented reality. Now, there is some possibility that if they create a private nuisance - by being too loud, or by otherwise interfering with the use of the property - owners of a property could bring a claim in tort against players for doing so - or charges for a public nuisance, when done in a public area.