“Heard you had a lucky streak.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it.”
When your territory reaches ten corners, your outfit is large enough to support a gambling operation. Should you? Yes. It’s a way to move money between characters in places you don’t yet have a building, plus indebted gamblers give you free stuff!
How many customers they can get depends on the area, but increases with size of operation. How much cash on hand is needed depends on which and how many features are present.
To open a gambling operation, speak to one of your fronts with whom you have at least 2 Favors. They will show you a selection of buildings and how many walk-in customers are available for that location. You want that number to be as high as possible, but you can make it work with a measly 29.
You can only have one gambling operation per police precinct (two in Atlantic City), and if the beat cop ain’t in your pocket, you’ll soon be out of pocket …
Gambling Houses
Build and upgrade time is instant. Any gambling operation requires a Manager to be added before you can add money and build Features.
| Gambling Den | Small Gambling House | Medium Gambling House | Large Gambling House | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icon |  |  |  |  |
| Build cost from scratch | -$1500 | -$3000 | -$4500 | -$7500 |
| Upgrade cost | -$1700 to Small | -$2200 to Medium | -$3500 to Large | n/a |
| Requirements for upgrade | Skill: Money Laundering | Skill: Cooked Books | Territory size: 30 corners House Manager: level 3 | n/a |
| Features | 3 | 5 | 7 | 10 |
You need to make sure you have enough cash in the building to be able to fund the features you’ve built. Every feature has a Cash on hand sum you need to cover for that feature to function, i.e. to cover the cost of paying out winnings. The overview screen of each gambling house will show you the total required to cover every feature. You can use an automated route to ensure your gambling operations are always topped up.
You can look at the overview screen from anywhere on the map, but you need a crew member to be on the same Corner as the gambling house to interact with it. It doesn’t cost them an Action to add/remove money or to help kick someone out. (Kick out those who scare away others. People who “sit” on lots of money might soon have a losing streak, so they can be good to leave alone. Unless you suspect them of cheating, of course.)
Gambling features
Now has its own dedicated page!
➡️ For occasional gamblers
➡️ For regular gamblers
➡️ Performance enhancing features
Upgrade tree
| Tier 1 | → | Tier 2 | → | Tier 3 | → | Tier 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gambling Den (all maps) | → | Small Gambling House | → | Medium Gambling House | → | Large Gambling House |
| → | Small Casino (Atlantic City) | → | Medium Casino (Atlantic City) | → | Luxury Casino (Atlantic City) |