The GTA series by Rockstar Games is one of the most popular PC games franchises in the world. When GTA Vice City was first launched it spread like wildfire across the Gaming community. Every kid who had a computer had this game installed and would spend hours playing it. How could they not? GTA Vice City was something new to the market and never seen before. The game basically never ended. You could play it over and over again, going on missions or simply roaming the city while the cops were in hot pursuit. But to us one detail stood out from the rest. Players could also take part in many gambling ventures. After all, the name of the game is Vice City and what better vice is there than gambling. Let’s take a look how the gambling ventures in the GTA series were depicted.

Cash Races in Vice City

You surely remember the street races in GTA Vice City. You could take part in several races, each one covered by a small $100 entry fee. You could roam around the Escobar International Airport or you could go on an all endurance race across the entire map for the top $5,000 prize. These races were a great way to have fun and earn cash, which you could later use to make purchases across the map. The main goal of the races were to “Earn cash, not kudos”, like the street racer motto goes.

Gambling whales in GTA San Andreas

The gambling operations in San Andreas were brought to a whole new level. Players could now visit the Las Venturas casinos. If you want to play slots, table games, video poker or wheel of fortune this is the place to go. You could play against the dealer or compete against other players. But the game also featured a couple of horse tracks and betting shops. Here you could bet up to $1k and win much more in return. Players could still enter street races, but this time they came with no entry fees attached.

One of the most interesting gambling features in GTA San Andreas was the VIP loyalty level at the casinos. The more you played at the casino the higher your VIP status went. So with every $100 bet you would climb a little closer to the top Whale level, which was won by wagering a total of $100,000 on the casino games. If you ran out of money you could also get a loan from the local mobster families. The only problem occurred when you couldn’t pay back your debt, so the mobster ultimately sent hit men to hunt you down.

GTA Chinatown Wars

GTA Chinatown Wars was released in 2008. In terms of gambling the game featured only instant win scratch cards. You could scratch away the I’m Rich, Liberty City Lotto and Ammunition scratch cards. So in return the prizes which you could win were money, extra health, different kinds of weapons or some enhanced body armor to protect you in the shootouts.

Episodes from Liberty City

The GTA IV game didn’t have any gambling games to start with. But with the Episodes from Liberty City expansion the gambling games returned once again. You could take part in the card game Hi Lo. The game is similar to the Hi Lo game you can play at casinos today. The goal is to guess whether the next card dealt will be of higher or lower value than the one on the table. In the game players could win up to $40 from the pot.

The second part of the expansion was called the Ballad of Gay Tony. Here players were led into illegal underground cage fights. You needed to pay a $100 entrance fee and if you managed to beat all of the opponents you could end up with $4,000 in cash. If you didn’t want to fight you could simply bet on the fighters and reap the rewards after a victory.

GTA V Street Racing

This version of the game was all about street racing and racking in big money. Players would pay a certain entry fee and if you managed to win the race you would be rewarded with a payout of 4.5 times your entry fee. You could also bet against other players, as long as enough players entered the race and wanted to place wagers.