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Legitimate Gambling in SWTOR's Update 2.8 Spoils of War

Legitimate Gambling in SWTOR

When Star Wars: the Old Republic became Free-to-play, an element of gambling has also been added. You can get Cartel Packs with real-world money, with which you may (may not) get any items you want included in them depending on a random number generator. And with the Dye Modules were added later on, it was another gamble – you could end up getting some dreadful color combo that makes your character look like a cheap knockoff action figure, which you can’t even give away, or if very lucky, you can get Black/Black which is still worth 3 million credits.

Either way, it’s always been a gamble. Basically, you have your choice between Craps and Roulette. There are enough opportunities for you to consume money, but the odds of getting anything good have always favored the house rather than the player.

Slot machines have also been added into the mix with the release of Game Update 2.8. Actual slot machines, According to the SWTOR website:

Spoils of War

Soovada ("Spoils of War" in Huttese) is an annual celebration of total extravagance in Hutt culture, originally celebrated in the summer season of Varl after successful military campaigns. Rival clans compete to prove their superior wealth, attempting to sponsor the most parties, pit fights, bounties, gambling, and every other public display of fortune and excess imaginable.

Popularized among outside cultures during visits to Nar Shaddaa, this exuberant holiday is now celebrated on hundreds of worlds across the galaxy, where it's simply known by its Huttese name; any connection to ancient wartime looting is largely ignored.

You can find banks of new slot machines at Star Cluster or Club Vertica Casino on Nar Shaddaa. There are two games you can play with those new slot machines: Kingpin’s Bounty or Smuggler’s Luck. The rules for both games are exactly the same: put in a token then push the button, and see if the arrow lines up with the highlighted arc. If the arrow lands inside the highlighted arc, you win. If not, you lose. It is impossible for a person to engineer a win – the relative positions of the rotating arrow and arc at the same moment of the button is pressed have no bearing on the outcome. The random number generator is the only determining factor that can let to different outcomes. Also, note that the position of the arc and arrow do not determine whether or not you win or lose - the win/lose mechanic determines the position of the arc and arrow, and just because it's pointing dead-center doesn't mean you should have won the jackpot.

If win, you can get your token back and can play again. Sometimes, you also can get a little something extra. The “something extra” depends on the game you are playing; you can win double coins(a “Feeling Lucky” buff or a Kingpin’s Casion token”) on smgguler’s luck machines. On Kingpin’s Bounty machines, you can win Gold Certificates or, very rarely, one of the new mounts.

There are some people claiming to score a “something extra” win about 1:7 times, but my own win: lose ration was more like 1:15 or so. On smuggler’s Luck machines, I won more often than I lost, but eventually I lost all my tokens anyway. On Kingpin’s Bounty machines, I lost often.

There’s a bit of strategy involved here. Because Kingpin’s Casino tokens are 50 times more expensive than Smuggler’s luck tokens, but the Kingpin’s Bounty machines are the ones can bring you good profit. So here is the trick to play the cheaper SL machines first until you get a) Kingpin’s Casino tokens, and b) the 2-minute “Feeling Lucky” buff, which supposedly “ greatly increase your chance” of wining at the Kingpin’s Bounty machines.

Update 2.8

SWTOR Game Update 2.8 - Feeling Lucky buff in this case, it seems we may need to redefine a few English words. Your chances of winning stuff with the “Feeling Lucky” buff are:              

I suppose they also take “getting your taoken back” into account” as “wining”, and to be fair, that is over 14% more likely with the buff than without. And you’re around 16% less likely to lose your coin outright. 

Your mileage, however, may vary – mine certainly did. My juggernaut lost his hard- won Kingpin’s Casino token on the first go 4 times in a row with the “Feeling Lucky” buff. I felt about as lucky as the Scorpio Killer felt at the end of Dirty Harry. Then my Operative went in, spent less than 10% of what the Juggernaut spent on tokens, and won two speeder jackpots. RNGs are a cruel mistress.

To buy Kingpin’s Casino tokens directly is not an economical idea. I once bought hundreds of thousands of credit’s worth of Kingpin’s Casino, at 50,000 credits each, and used up all of them almost immediately before Ifigured out the much more financially – viable strategy of playing the cheap machines to get the expensive machine tokens. 50,000 credits buy 50 Smuggler’s Luck tokens, and you can turn that into a good fistful of Kingpin’s Casino tokens, instead of getting just one by buying it directly. I spent and lost around 800,000 credits in a matter of minutes. it would have taken much, much longer to burn through that much money buying only the Smuggler’s Luck tokens, and instead of ending up with only 6 Gold Certificates for all that money, I probably would have ended up with far more.

Obviously, the ultimate goal for everyone is to get new mounts: the slick retro-style Vectron Magnus speeders, which kinda look like scaled-down late-40’s Chevy Coupes, or the Kingpin’s Rancor, which kinda looks like a rancor, are the big-ticket items. Some folks have lucked out and won those almost right away, others have spent hundreds of thousands of credits and gotten only the Gold Certificates.

The Gold Certificate prizes are alright. The gear has a “classic mobster” vibe, with blaste rifles clearly modeled after the Thompson M1921 submachine gun (also knoun as the “Tommy Gun” or the “Chicago Typewriter”). The armor pieces are re-skinned high-level Smuggler gear.

This event is more likely a cut-and-dreid credit sink.whatever, the house will be the last winner – even if you’re one of the lucky few who wins the rancor mount right away, there are hundreds of other playerplinking token after token into the machiens and get nothing.

On the other hand, its“honest” gambing – the Cartel Market, selling chances at phat loot for real-world cash, seems somehow more sleazy than straight- up video slot machines wit a terrible payout chance. With a slot machinge, there’s no pretending you’re not gambling, because it’s a slot machine. With the Cartel Market, the gamble is buried beneath the marketing.

SWTOR

The casino will reamian operating into August, and “ Sumber of SWTOR” will see the returen of number of other special events – Relics of the Gree and Bounty Contact week are announced. And I have my figers crossed for another plague outbreak….. which, admittedly, sounds pretty damned horrible outside of the context of the game? And be sue to check in during the first week of July – the entire week is a Double XP event.

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