I'm on my second character now, they have a 7 for Luck. My first PC had a 2. I attempted to play Blackjack with that character and it was useless. If I held at 20 the dealer had 21. Held at 19? The dealer had 20. It was just a cap drain. So, as a test, I go back with this character now. I start slow, playing correctly, and I'm winning easily. The cards are all falling in my favor. So I start to push it. Long story short: I COULD NOT lose. I started doubling down on everything. I mean everything. Dealt 20? Double down. An Ace drops. 19? Double down. A 2 drops. It was ridiculous. 20%+ of the time I was dealt Blackjack. I would lose one out of every 7 or 8 hands and that was because I was playing like an idiot. I'd make up that loss the next time I split tens and got Black Jack on both of them though. Usually on the next hand. In a matter of an hour I busted all four casinos in Vegas and Freeside.

Now I have no problem with Luck factoring into gambling a bit but isn't this over the top? Put 7 into luck and it's a guaranteed 30,000+ in chips in a matter of 45 minutes to an hour. I guess with a 10 Luck you would literally never lose a hand. It's not gambling in any way. It also takes all the fun out of gambling when you see so clearly that the next card is not random at all.

Does anyone else think they could have handled this better? And how so?

No, I think it's fine.

#1: There is a maximum limit to the amount of caps you can win at each casino.
#2: Many people have already remarked that Luck is a "dump-stat" for a lot of builds. This makes it more useful.
#3: It's just plain fun for things to go this way. It's an RPG, man - you built the luckiest man on earth. So why not have something in the game that shows just how lucky he is?

Plus, if you really need to gamble without luck getting in the way, slots and roulette are less dependent on the Luck stat, I believe. If you really want to gamble and play CARDS, Caravan doesn't rely on luck at all. I've gotten good enough at it that I can consistantly win games on my character that has a Luck of 1.

I've always ended up with Luck of 7 with a luck implant and cleaned out New Vegas every time. Took me 4 hours of constant blackjack and slots winnings to nail all the casinos and grab my trophy. Walked out with 40Kish caps, too and keys to every casino high roller suite. Too bad my file where I wond 64,400 caps from 4 casinos got FUBAR. The PS3 version needs CONSOLE COMMANDS!

"Okay, don't let Bender into your lunar lander. Fine, I'll get my own lunar lander, with blackjack and hokers. On second thought, forget the blackjack..."
-Bender Bending Rodriguez: Futurama-

I cant say I had as much luck as you capeo, with my 7 LUCK character, and I use to wear the Naugthy Nightwear too, that makes it 8 LUCK, but I rarely won much at even Slots, Roulette, or even Black Jack.

I guess the RPG angle is a valid point. I'm torn on it myself.

As for Caravan, that's a joke too. It's impossible to lose even if you don't use the discard exploit simply because opponents won't use face cards against you. I haven't lost in well over 80 games now. It would cool if the made certain NPCs be better at the game.

NOTE TO MODS: Feel free to fix my typo in the topic header. I can't seem to do it.

I love it. My Luck 10 character has quite a bit of caps, and it is just amusing to essentially rob the casinos of their money.

I played blackjack at 10 luck and it seems impossible to lose even a single hand.
With slots it still takes 20 or 30 pulls to hit a jackpot but the best I have gotten is 3 graqes twice and 3 lemons twice. No bars, no sevens, no bells.
Roulette seems like the hardest to win at. but I have not played that as much.

On my first playthrough I've found some soldier in the NCR embassy who seemed to play better than the rest. Still no face cards on your cards but still he managed to beat me a few times. I wasn't using 6/8/10/K or the 7/9/10 strategies, was just playing fairly. I know how to play better now (and how to get other cards to merge with my deck, didn't know this first time) so I wonder if he still has a chance.

I don't mind that gambling is too dependent on the luck stat. Heck I don't need to gamble their are plenty of ways to make caps out in the wasteland.

I use luck for scrounger. So many missiles...........

I always play smart when playing blackjack so I can't say if luck is too powerful or not, but I have been moving through New Vegas like a master thief that isn't stealing. It isn't even fair, but I'm fine with it.
Slots don't work well for me (with a luck of 7 I won over 300 chips from blackjack when I started with 1 chip but then lost it all on slots). Haven't played roulette very much.

With a Luck of 7 you can play very stupidly at Blackjack and win non-stop in my experience. I can't speak to slots or roulette though, because I haven't tried them.

I absolutely love this dynamic. Makes me really grateful for sacrificing other specials for luck on my sniper.

Luck 7 is definitely the sweet spot... I just used Intense Training to step up my characters luck from 6 (where her could do no better than break even after long sessions at the blackjack table) to a 7... Walked into Gomorrah and get banned within 20 minutes... Walk over to the Tops, banned in about 15 minutes... Totally changes which cards you draw just by increasing that stat to 7.
Roulette seems easier to win, also... I just bet the max on the same number, spin after spin, and it seems to pay out every 5-8 spins... Since you can pick a number that has payouts somewhere in the range of 30:1, it's fairly straightforward (if not a little tedious) to win the max in that fashion.

No, I think the gambling svcks. I LOVE blackjack and was looking forward to playing a "normal" odds game. Instead that totally jacked it up. Forget it. I am sure a modder will fix this, but I am on an Xbox so that does jack [censored] for me.

Yeah, luck is a huge factor; with an 8 (7 + Naughty Nightware) I can clean up. My problem was that I actually do play blackjack, and know the odds. In game I have to remember to ignore all that and just double down.

I need to make sure I forget all the FO:NV gambling the next time I play for real, or I'll loose my shirt in 30 seconds :facepalm:

There's, like, at least five hundred million websites (and actual games, I'm sure) that let you play regular blackjack if that's what you want to do. Seriously. It's a role-playing game with stats, and they mentioned that the gambling was all affected by luck ages ago. Not sure what you expected.

Just because something was mentioned prior to release doesn't mean a thing. That doesn't mean you can't complain about the mechanic. For one, they said it would have an effect but not to what degree. They certainly didn't say having high Luck would nullify any point in gambling and simply make taking a 7 or higher in Luck a guaranteed 40,000 cap boost at the start of the game. I was level 2 (snuck my way to Vegas) and able to get implants galore and the best Medium armor the game offers. I'm pretty sure that wasn't what Obsidian had in mind.

The gambling mechanic is particularly bad in the face of the gambling in such recent releases as Red Dead Redemption.

Blackjack is where it's at.

Even without high Luck the odds are still in your favor.

I just keep reminding myself that this is an RPG, and thus my characters skills are what should matter, not mine. I feel they did a good job making Luck so important to the casino games, otherwise a player good at blackjack would have an advantage other players lacking that real life skill.

If you want to take advantage of your real life skills, learn Caravan. I've been making decent money as a card shark all game B)

There was a review posted somewhere over a month before the game released in which the reviewer was talking about playing a demo version with high luck and cleaning house at the casinos because of it. I also know three people who started with high luck out of the gates specifically with the intent of going to the casinos, so the information was out there. Anybody can complain about whatever they want to, obviously. I could complain that the sky is blue. Rolling a high luck character and then complaining that it trivializes the gambling aspect strikes me as a bit silly. That's not even mentioning the fact that blackjack is really the only game affected by it. The payouts from slot machines svck as somebody else already noted, and having a high luck doesn't affect roulette at all unless you keep betting on a 30:1 shot over and over and over and waiting for a win (which is basically the same thing as reloading until you win, I.E., cheating, so there's no sense complaining over that either).

Gambling's fine in my opinion. I really like the way it's set up and the fact that their is a limit on how much you can win at a casino.

agreed, if you want balance set luck to 4 or something i don't know :shrug: