The chart above represents the user-to-user transactions in Second Life (in US Dollars) per day, over almost the whole second half of 2007. The day the gambling ban was enacted is marked with the red line.
From the data we have, it appears that proceeds of the gambling culture that existed prior to that ban did not significantly flow on into the broader Second Life economy, but tended to circulate within itself and via the LindEX currency exchange.
On the whole, the economy shows signs of a slow but steady upwards trend, offset by some noticeable dips that coincide with widespread grid problems.
Christmas Eve and the few days leading up to it saw a dip in cash transactions, which largely started to recover on Christmas day, but will doubtless take another dive as New Year comes down on the grid.
Interestingly, the economy - at least as represented by user-to-user transactions doesn't seem to have been impacted at all by a 15% decline in active-users-per-60-days in the same period. As we've seen, the fall in active users has been mostly offset by overall upward trends in user-hours (crappy grid months, notwithstanding, obviously - which also are represented in sudden downward falls in user-to-user transactions in the charts above).
Falls in overall user hours, however will generally be experienced by the market as dilution - reduced sales, fewer customers, and lower demands for services. Most of that however, only really becomes readily apparent after the fact - it takes time for weather to become climate, or sudden changes of focus among users to become identifiable, longer-term trends. The conditions prevailing in previous years were far too different to use as a basis for comparison for this data this year.
