Im sorry if an idea like this had been post before, but im new to the forum.

For those of you who are familiarized with pokerstars i imagine that this idea must have crossed your mind at one point. For those who aren't ill explain...

What im talking about is to give the posibility to play for money to warlight players, in a way that its incorporated to the system, also there could be tournaments for money, and still maintain the non money games.

The points on favor that come to my mind are first, a real chance of proffit for fizzer, since for example an inscription for a tournament could be of 0,50 USD, with 200 people that would be 100 USD, were 90 could go on prizes for the first places, en 10 dollars could go to warlight for hosting the tournament.

Secondly, popularity, i think this posibility would make the game much more appealing to more people, and the voice would spread faster i think... (but i may be wrong on this one).

Third, how many people love the game but dont pay the membership, i think a lot of people that are not willing to pay a membership would be willing to play a 1 dollar tournament, and that would be money to warlight.

Basicly pokerstars is divided in a place where you play for money, and a place where you place only for fun (altough as you may imagine i beleive playing for money is fun). In the paid part, you have constant tournaments with many prizes, and tables where anybody can join, i think this could be quite similar and succesfull.

Also, if this was succesfull, i dont think there would be a need for memberships being sold, if the money income is good, everybody could have the memberships benefits, and the people who paid for one could get their money back in credit (thats assuming its going well for a while....) maybe they can get a distinction for supporting.

Anyway, that is the summary of the idea, but its a lot more elaborate than this, just wanted to see what you people that have been playing longer and specially what fizzer thinks about it.

If you come this far... thanks for the attention.

damnit... wrote proffenional... xD

This would be a great idea, but would require alot of work from Fizzer... A possible big money-maker too though. I wouldn't want to see Warlight lose it's free games though.

im not a gambler, and if it did become so i would only play for fun.

the idea of gambling has never been attractive for me, and as there are many players better then me, entering a prize tourney would just be me burning up money

I don't really think many people would be willing to play warlight for money, thus making all the work necessary to implement this idea not worth the eventual revenue.. Even so, there would be so many consequences of a decision like this that it would hardly be controllable imho.

you should email fizzier with your idea

i doubt it would be implemented though

the only way this could happen is by organising it outside of warlight, but this would turn a lot of people away

Certainly an interesting idea. However, it might not be as easy as you think:

For one, I have no idea about the legal consequences. While it is possible to play WL with just about no luck ("0% luck, straight round, alternating turn order, specifying exactly which cards you get" would leave only the luck of who gets the very first turn), I'm not sure if that's enough to make it (legally) count as a game of skill instead of a game of chance (read: gambling).
Unless you are a licensed lawyer, who specialises in exactly this field and in the correct jurisdiction please don't say "oh come on, it's obviously a game of skill" because (sorry for being rude), your opinion on that matter is irrelevant (and many governments are very strict about gambling laws, so the consequences of getting it wrong are pretty bad).

I have no idea how well-secured WarLight is, but the moment real money is involved, that will be very thoroughly tested, so it should be very accurately reviewed beforehand. This would take a lot of time and probably be rather expensive as well (because it has to be done by professionals, otherwise you're just asking for trouble).

Do you have a suggestion on how to keep skill-level in tournaments "balanced"? I think people would quickly stop playing for money if they know they have absolutely no chance of winning. Also, with the select few top players, it's not unlikely a few of them will collect most of the prize money. It's ultimately Fizzer's decision, but personally I think it would be morally wrong for those players to make (much) more money on WL than Fizzer himself does...

However, Fizzer has said that, after the mobile clients are done, he'd like to look into possibilities of making WL profitable...

I think the idea needs a lot of work, but i would like that making a profit out of warlight meant including publicity in the game or something of that sort,
anyway is it mandatory to make it a non luck game? there are a lot of gambling pages on the internet, who do they make it legally, are they placed on a country where gambling is legal or something of that sort?

and to the ondes that say that you would play because the same people would win always, in pokerstars there are professional too, and beleive me when i say to you, you can't win them with luck... however you can win money, and a lot of people play. A 200 people tournament in pokerstars can have prizes (although very small) even up to position 50. Maybe you enter the tournament with 0,50 and you leave with 0,60 , winning 0,10 wich is not much, but im not talking of being a millionare thanks to warlight, and fizzer could make more money that anyone, he would choose what money goes to warlight,

for example 200 people pay 0,5 dollars, thats 100 dollars in total, 30 goes to warlight, 20 goes to the first, 10 to the second, 5 to the third, 2,5 dollars from 4 to 10, and 0,6 from 11 to 40

Anyway, tournaments are long, so i think there could be also normal games, for example you always play with a friend in 2v2, so you create a game of 2v2 for 0,5 dollars with your friend and you can put in open seats that you dont want someone who has over 3000 games played... For this to work i think warlight should have 4 or 5 maps with standars settings that you could choose, so you are not able to choose any map and choose any setting, so that you dont have and advantage over the one that joins who is not used to this map with this settings...

Also there should be a way to enter the game with your teammate so you dont get stuck in a money game with someone you dont want to play, or maybe when you join a game you also have to "commit" for the game to start, that way you can decline if you dont like your teammate wich should be a person of your trust if you are playing for money.

with your tagline, it shouldn't matter whether WL is a game of luck!

its just a judas priest song xD

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in November 2002 that the Federal Wire Act prohibits electronic transmission of information for sports betting across telecommunications lines but affirmed a lower court ruling that the Wire Act "'in plain language' does not prohibit Internet gambling on a game of chance." But the federal Department of Justice continues, publicly, to take the position that the Wire Act covers all forms of gambling.

In short, The United States government has the right to come and "seize" Warlight funds, as well as the players funds.

so as soon as WL becomes well known, it will be destroyed

But i guess theres a way to overcome that, or pokerstars wouldnt exist, bwin.com, etc... I have no idea of what im talking about, but maybe theres a way to move the host to a country where it is permitted, without actually having to phisicaly move, or someway of that sort, theres a lot of pages that make it work, it cant be impossible

Internet pokersites have their servers in countries that dont have any laws against poker.

Another issue is the age of the players. I dont know if there are any laws against kids gambling on the internet, but its possible

is it gambling if you're only betting on yourself, in a game of mostly skill?

with settings like season 4, for example, it's almost never luck that determines a winner.

Bunes, thats what i meant, isnt it possible to have the server somewhere were is legal, without fizzer having to move? maybe its not that hard... But i really have no idea on the matter...

And I see no problem on having to be of certain age to play on the money games, meanwhile you can play de non money games like now...

And X, i know what you mean, and you are right, if a good player plays against a bad player, he will win on 99% of the cases, but that 1% makes it a gambling game, for example the territories are always given away by luck if two people choose the same territorie in the same priority, and i dont think that should change. But i dont see the problem of it being considered a gambling game, only in the fact of the legal... Anyone of us who play the game knows how much "gambling" there is involved.

A while ago (maybe a couple of months?), the US Department of Justice took down three of the biggest poker sites. Yesterday US Customs (or Homeland Security or who knows what branch exactly) closed a bunch of stores selling counterfeit goods.
There is some law (which is internationally disputed...) "In our Sites" or something I think, with which the US gives itself authority to do pretty much whatever the hell they want on the Internet.
As another example, the MegaUpload servers where physically located outside of the US, the company running those servers was legally based outside of the US and the people running that company where physically outside of the US..., how much good did that do them?

No, if you want to make this a betting site, the first step is talking to an attorney. :(

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is it gambling if you're only betting on yourself, in a game of mostly skill?

Are you asking common sense, or the law? There's no guarantee the answer will be the same...

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you can put in open seats that you dont want someone who has over 3000 games played...

Like I said, as soon as money is involved, security becomes a very real issue. Also in this case: checking whether an account has played less than 3000 games is easy..., checking whether a player has played less than 3000 games is incredibly difficult (people can just start a new account every couple hundred games). Currently that's not really a problem (in general people want high stats, instead of low), but with money involved it's suddenly a problem after all.

well then, i guess its impossible, thought it was a nice idea, thanks for the replys