There have been various rumors about Grand Theft Auto V’s casino ever since the game was released on consoles back in September 2013. Included in the game but slapped with an “opening soon” sign, the casino immediately got fans excited for eventual DLC. Since then, there have been several leaks about casino content, including images of characters from the game meandering about the casino floor. But now, it seems we finally have something fairly concrete to look forward to.
As written up in International Business Times, twitter user @Funmw2 (known for gaming leaks) has spotted various hints in coded scripts that the casino is opening soon. In fact, @Funmw2 got even more specific and noted evidence of four gambling activities in particular: poker, blackjack, slots, and roulette.
It’s not quite confirmation, but it feels fairly concrete. So what should GTA V enthusiasts expect or hope for from these games-within-the-game? Here are a few ideas….
Regarding poker, the obvious hope is that games are organized in a way that lets users play against one another online, as opposed to simply against automated characters. Given that online poker remains illegal in much of the U.S.,card tables within the GTA V casino could offer an interesting gaming niche of their own—real poker, with video game money on the line. There are plenty of poker apps and fake online games that involve play money, but really, nothing’s at stake when you play these games. A poker game in GTA V can’t get as realistic as involving real money, but if in-game cash is on the line, players would feel as if something’s at risk. That could be a lot of fun.
For blackjack, the hope would basically be the same. It’d be great to see tables that invite multiple live players at the same time. However, blackjack is also a different game, primarily involving the dealer and the player alone, rather than player vs. player competition. To spice up the GTA V blackjack content, it would be cool if there were some kind of option to count cards. This is just an idea, but perhaps you can choose to risk counting cards, and be rewarded either by a high payout or a brawl with casino security.
Slots could be particularly interesting. The simplest way to do it is to have the slot machines off to the side as bland, obligatory additions to the casino. Or GTA V could follow the trend of online casinos toward involving themes from pop culture in gameplay, as this is now more or less expected. Intercasino was the very first large scale online casino to really get going, and even there you will find characters, titles, images, and soundtracks from comics, cinema, and mainstream fiction. Depending on licensing complications, GTA V could directly follow this format in the way that so many online sites have. Or, if licensing for characters and titles gets in the way, it could be fun to see GTA V slot machines based on past Rockstar games and themes. After all, the series has a pretty vast world of culture to pick details from, and these could serve as awesome Easter eggs for longtime fans.
And then there’s roulette, which is kind of difficult to spice up any way you cut it. The only idea here is for roulette tables to be crowded and spawn occasional outbursts or disruptions when somebody wins big… Or maybe there could be a back room where your character can find his way into some Russian roulette on a particularly daring day.
Finally, there are the heists. All of the above would be nice, and we hope that at least some of these ideas are in line with what Rockstar has planned when the GTA V casino finally opens. But there are numerous reports online that the next DLC (coinciding with the release of GTA V for PC) will at least include heist options, presumably including one at the casino. That should be pretty great, but hopefully the casino itself meets expectations as well.
