I think I know why there's no Pazaak

Packs are not gambling, just like baseball cards, booster pack for TCGs, grab bags, etc. are not gambling
NS Casino event does not count as gambling, because it is played with ingame currency

Technically they are.

Technically they are, but the same thing could be said about the things I mentioned. And no law on Earth sees these as gambling, as far as I am aware.

If Cartel Packs are gambling, then so is Magic the Gathering and anything like it.

No... technically they are not. You pay for something and you get something. It's not gambling just because there is a good chance that you don't get what you want. Every purchase gives you something of value. No jurisdiction in the US or EU (feel free to correct me**) sees this sort of situation --even when done with currency and concrete goods-- as gambling. When using in-game currency (which has zero value) to purchase in-game items (which also have zero value), there are even fewer places that have any manner of regulations on it.

What you meant to say is that it feels like gambling. It triggers the same psychological reactions as gambling. But technically, it is not. Of course... there are loads of things that feel like gambling, and for people with gambling addictions, there are loads of places they can go to get their fix legally. It's pointless to use this "feels like gambling" argument to oppose any sort of game changes when there are so many faster, easier and stronger "feels like gambling" experiences out there.

[ ** ] Challenge: Find me a country that treats the purchasing of baseball cards or Magic the Gathering cards as gambling.

You are using money to purchase something that you don't know what's inside of for a chance to get something rare. That is called gambling.

No. It's not.

Gambling --by the technical definition-- is a game of chance where you risk currency or items with monetary value for the chance of winning currency or items which have value.

SWTOR packs fail that definition in several ways:

• You do not buy them with money. You buy them with in-game currency. Whether you traded real currency for that in-game currency or not is irrelevant. If you bought game currency with real currency, you got exactly what you were promised with no risk on your part. What you bought was a game experience.
• There is no risk. When you buy packs with CC, you always get something.
• There is no way to win currency. The results of a pack-purchase are always in-game items. There is no game mechanism for converting items into currency. Gold-sellers, Account-sellers, and item-sellers do not qualify, as they are run out-of-game and using one invalidates your license to use the game.
• Nothing you win has any legal value. It exists as an in-game experience only. It's impossible to win anything that has legal value.
• Technically, you don't even have legal ownership of anything in-game. This includes Cartel Coins. Bioware is going to do everything it can to guarantee that you are able to use them as you like, but in any legal action, EA retains ownership over all in-game characters and property.

You're stretching the definition of gambling far beyond what is actually accepted in every legal system on the world and beyond even the loose definitions used by the majority of ordinary people. While people talk about baseball cards being like gambling, no jurisdiction I know of treats them as gambling, and only a tiny minority of people would readily associate the two words. Gumball machines randomly pick a gumball for you, and you may not get what you want. Even a box of jelly beans has a random assortment of jelly beans in it. Are you suggesting that boxes of jelly beans are gambling now, too, because you may not get your preferred mix of flavors?

This behavior isn't new. The word "gambling" has a negative connotation. Most people who have tried to apply it to video games have done it with the attempt to cast the activity in a bad light in order to push some agenda. If you need to be academically dishonest to further your argument, then you have a weak argument to begin with.

Really? I buy packs to increase my reputation with respective factions! And I buy them a crate at a time, so I always get enough items. Oh, sure, the value of their contents lets me make most of the money back on the GTN, but when I want something rare, I just buy it.

Packs are very thoroughly isolated from being gambling. Even the number of items you get is fixed. It literally comes down to whether you get a mount with this look or with that look, but both even move at the same speed.

Well, let's look at this from a purely practical perspective.

And by "practical", I mean "of or concerned with the actual doing or use of something rather than with theory and ideas."

The ESRB defines two types of gambling that can appear in a game:

1. Real Gambling - Player can gamble, including betting or wagering real cash or currency
2. Simulated Gambling - Player can gamble without betting or wagering real cash or currency

Any game that contains "Real Gambling" gets an AO (Adults Only) rating.
Any game that contains "Simulated Gambling" gets a T (Teen) rating.

Source:
http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp

SW:TOR has a "Teen" rating. Source:
http://www.esrb.org/ratings/synopsis...tificate=31564

So, for all practical purposes, TOR does not acutally have "real" gambling, according to the ESRB. You can believe that it has real gambling, you can insist that it has real gambling, you can argue that it has real gambling, heck you might even convince a few people on these forums that it has real gambling.

But nothing you could possibly say would have any practical effect on reality. Unless you were to form a lobby of angry parents and successfully litigate against EA and the ESRB to change the rating to AO, you're doing what is colloquially known as "pissing in the wind".

Edit: And if it wasn't obvious from the two links I posted above, Bioware could add Pazaak and/or Sabacc to SW:TOR without changing its Teen rating.

Ya'll are getting really upset about this and its hilarious. Too bad at the end of the day its still gambling. You're purchasing something with no knowledge of whats inside. You are taking a chance on that purchase. Its gambling