At the request of MMORPG Second Life creator Linden Lab, FBI investigators have visited some of the virtual casinos in the virtual world, but just how gambling in Second Life stands from a legal viewpoint is still in question. This according to reports from Reuters.

Casinos offering poker, slot machines, and blackjack can be found pretty much everywhere in Second Life. Linden Lab is currently seeking guidance from the FBI regarding all of this virtual gaming activity in their virtual creation. The company has yet to receive any clear rules from U.S. authorities, however.

"It's not always clear to us whether a 3-D simulation of a casino is the same thing as a casino, legally speaking, and it's not clear to the law enforcement authorities we have asked," said Ginsu Yoon, who until recently was Linden Lab's general counsel and is currently the company's vice president for business affairs.

Reuters reports that while most lawyers agree that placing bets using Linden dollars - Second Life's own form of virtual currency - "likely violates U.S. anti-gambling statutes, which cover circumstances in which 'something of value' is wagered." What remains uncertain is the degree of Linden Lab's responsibility in the matter.

"If you're buying money on the Lindex (a virtual currency exchange) and utilizing it for gambling purposes, Linden could have a much higher level of responsibility," said Sean Kane, a lawyer at New York's Drakeford & Kane who has studied the legal issues of virtual worlds. "If they would be found in violation, that's difficult to say, but I can see a much stronger case being made."

Getting familiar with the flop odds is one of those things that any good poker player is sure to study, so if you're looking to increase our chances of winning at freeholdemstrategy.com's WoW Texas Holdem mod, then you should probably check out this World of Warcraft mod by Kraize.

Called - appropriately enough - WoW Texas Holdem Flop Odds, this mod is actually a chart of the odds of flopping a playable hand for different Texas Holdem starting hands. For the uninitiated, a flop refers to the dealing of the first three face-up cards to the board or to those three cards themselves. This works in community card poker variants like - you guessed it - Texas Holdem.

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You'd never expect it to happen, but someone's actually making a living from playing an online game, and it isn't gold farming.

For a while now, Ben Foster has been playing online poker to support his family. Giving up his $110,000-a-year EBay job, he decided to play online poker full-time because of a calculated guess.

With his degree in Statistics and his know-how in tracking his games on a spreadsheet, he figured out that he could potentially make more money playing poker than working for Ebay. His mathematics showed that he could make around $125,000 yearly doing so. At the same time, he could stay at home and help his wife in tending to the kids.

With a lot of effort, and perhaps wins and losses, he has been able to get towards that goal. Making that kind of living in the home environment was tough though. Foster mentions, "It’s nearly impossible to play eight poker games at once when your 4-week-old son is screaming in the background." Still, he does what he does, and he plays the game well.

At the same time, he hasn't become obsessed enough with winning to forget his responsibilities as some addicted gamers have happened to do in the past. He has logged on to play less in recent months to help with the family, but makes up for it when he can.

These days he sits in his home in front of his two flat-panel displays, earning his keep in a more exciting, albeit unorthodox way. While he hasn't lost his love for poker, it has become a profession for him, and one he seems to be doing quite well. It's tough to risk a lot on a game, but it was a gamble that, for now, seems to have paid off. Let's just hope it stays that way.