RuneScape developers appear to be getting more aggressive against gold sellers, issuing a wave of bans earlier this week to so-called "ring leaders" of a gold supply operation.

The new bans hit an unspecified number of high-profile dicing hosts, which observers infer to include the now-infamous Stokenut, who confessed to earning $50,000[/utl] by selling RuneScape Gold before his recent permaban.

According to this Wikia explanation, dicing games were introduced to RuneScape as a form of light entertainment, but was quickly warped into a betting scam. Players used IRC bots to rig rolls in their favor - victims bet money on whether a roll would be higher or lower than a set number - earning the dupers easy Gold. The scam led to complaints and the removal of dice games late last year.

The bans also seem to have extended to known staking experts like Win All Day, whose accounts with a reported worth of 100 billion Gold in shards and rares were shut down due to related real world trading activities. Staking is another form of gambling that involves betting on fights at the Duel Arena.

"We have recently banned several high-profile accounts from the dicing scene. We can happily confirm that the ring leaders found to be involved in selling RuneScape gold have been banned. Their actions have directly funded a sizable portion of all real world trading activity within the game, led to increased macro use, and resulted in huge surges in spam advertising," " said Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard in a triumphant blog post .

Jagex implied that the accounts have been permanently banned, and hopes this serves as a "clear warning" that engaging in gold selling activities is prohibited. "Expect more bans of any continuing offenders."

Mr. Gerhard also hinted that at a bigger push against gold sellers is in the works. "We have been finely tuning our new anti-cheat and anti-hijack tools over the past few months and are now steadily bringing these systems online in select areas. This is part of an on-going rollout that will be completed over the course of next two months."

With the widespread bans temporarily curtailing the supply of RuneScape Gold flowing to RMT shops, RuneScape Gold prices are starting to creep up with more upward pressure expected in the coming weeks. RuneScape Gold is now trading at an industry median rate of $131 per 200 million Gold based on prices across 24 shops.