Grand Theft Auto Online began offering its Diamond Casino DLC recently. This service is now available to millions of kids/adults who have a GTA online account.

According to numerous reports, "over 50 countries" have banned the online gambling games so far. Casino games such as "Three Card Poker" enable players to pay real money for in-game currency, which can then be wagered at GTA Online's Diamond Casino.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidth.../#1614951a1757

https://www.pcgamer.com/grand-theft-...-50-countries/

While players are allowed to spend real money on the in-game currency, they are not allowed to re-convert those virtual chips back to real money.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49084726

Some analysts in the formally licensed online poker/casino industry may argue that the two marketplaces don't overlap that much. However, video games have been (arguably) infiltrating the online gambling market for years via Gacha mechanics tied to loot boxes and micro-transactions.

GTA Online is now offering online casino products that (in my opinion) pose a meaningful threat to regulated online gambling sites such as PokerStars/partypoker/888/etc -- especially now that video games are ramping-up their software development for services to capture the virtual casino market.

Thoughts?

I think for a lot of people, the live casino gambling experience is no different than online "virtual-currency" gambling. I look to my wife's gambling behavior as a typical example.

She likes to play slots at a casino on occasion, a few times a year. She will allot an budget ahead of time, and then usually spend 2x-3x that amount. She never quits when she is ahead, and instead continues to play until the money is all spent. She may cash out of a machine, taking the cash ticket, but that always goes back into another machine the same day. She always walks away a loser, and she justifies it by making a point to say what a good time she had playing.

So in a very real sense, the money she spends in the slot machine is really just a purchase of virtual currency - once it gets converted to slot play, it never gets converted back to real money.

In this sense, comparing it to a virtual casino such as the GTA Online offering I see no effective difference. But I don't know how the experience of a gambling addict might differ. Would the addict get the same emotional roller coaster from this type of virtual casino, knowing that there is never a chance of cashing out?

But if your wife won a fat jackpot she would cash out right? im picturing her hitting $10,000 and just staying at the casino til she loses it all back lol.

oh jesus you cant even withdraw winnings from GTA5. i didnt see that. LUL like who would purchase fake chips? I guess its like pokerstars and other sites that sell fake chips that cant be converted. i cant even fathom the incredible stupidity it would take to purchase that.

I imagine she would cash it out. But that's not the underlying motivation for her to play. She just enjoys the gaming.

It's entertainment dollars spent on gaming. People just enjoy the play. Some people like to play GTA; some people like to play MMORPG; some people like to play slots or casino table games.

In April of 2018 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that wagering with play-money chips constituted risking something of value on a game of chance under the laws of the State of Washington. Although the underlying lawsuit was against Churchill Downs, this prompted PokerStars to ban play-money games in Washington.

I could see how overly aggressive governments or overly cautious game designers might view mini-game casinos in a similar light, even if you don't have to (or can't) pay to reload your chips and get them instead through ordinary game play.