{"id":107054,"date":"2019-06-16T03:00:07","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T10:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=107054"},"modified":"2019-06-15T14:04:36","modified_gmt":"2019-06-15T21:04:36","slug":"gta-online-rockstar-games-confirms-casino-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gta-online-rockstar-games-confirms-casino-opening\/","title":{"rendered":"GTA Online: Rockstar Games Confirms Vinewood\u2019s \u2018Luxury Casino\u2019 Opening Soon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grand Theft Auto<\/em> publisher Rockstar Games has announced that the long-awaited casino in its GTA Online<\/em> game will shortly be open for business.<\/p>\n

\"GTA
The opening of Los Santos\u2019 first luxury casino in GTA Online<\/em> is likely to have regulators tutting but this is a game series where controversy has always been par for the course. (Image: Rockstar Games)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fans of the free-roaming multi-player have been waiting a long time for this. Ever since the debut of the game, five years ago, a sign saying \u201copening soon\u201d has hovered over the entrance to the casino in Vinewood, an upmarket district of the fictional City of Los Santos that is loosely based on Hollywood, Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

To put that into perspective, it\u2019s taken a similar amount of time for Rockstar to get its casino up and running as it has for Wynn Resorts to build the also-soon-to-open Encore Boston Harbor from the ground up at a cost of $2.5 billion.<\/p>\n

Vinewood\u2019s long-shuttered casino has become a running joke, an internet meme among gamers. But last week, players noticed that the sign had come down and evidence of construction outside the casino \u2013 a dumpster, a stack of 2x4s and some portable toilets \u2013 suggested the wait would soon be over.<\/p>\n

Gambling or Not?<\/b><\/h2>\n

On Thursday, Rockstar confirmed the rumors, announcing a new update that included a fully functional \u201cluxury\u201d casino would be made available soon.<\/p>\n

There were no details on how the casino might function within the context of the game, but if it\u2019s anything like the casino in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas<\/em>, it will include playable games like blackjack and roulette and will also be an in-game business that players can ultimately own.<\/p>\n

\n

The casino will open at a time when controversy about in-game ‘gambling’<\/a> is rife and increasingly attracting the attention of politicians and regulators — whether it be social casino games that ape the dynamics of real casino games but with the absence of a real-world prize, or loot boxes that use chance-based mechanisms to deliver in-game rewards.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

While players at GTA Online<\/em>\u2019s forthcoming casino will no doubt be risking in-game currency at the tables only, the use of microtransactions within the game — which give players the option of topping up GTA Dollars using real-world money via \u201cshark cards\u201d — is likely to displease regulators in certain jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

M for Mature<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In May, Republican US Senator for Missouri Josh Hawley said he would shortly introduce the \u201cProtecting Children from Abusive Games Act<\/a>,\u201d which seeks to address the issue of games that employ microtransactions and mechanisms that approximate the experience of gambling.<\/p>\n

In North America, GTA is rated M for Mature, with an age restriction of 17 years or older.<\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media and video games prey on user addiction, siphoning our kids\u2019 attention from the real world and extracting profits from fostering compulsive habits,\u201d Hawley said in a statement. \u201cNo matter this business model\u2019s advantages to the tech industry, one thing is clear: there is no excuse for exploiting children through such practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this is a game series that has never shied away from controversy-stirring features — from carjackings to beating up prostitutes. Amid the violence, adult humor, nudity, strong language, sexual content, and depictions of drugs and alcohol abuse, a play-money casino seems pretty tame.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only surprising that this particular controversy took Rockstar such a long time to roll out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grand Theft Auto publisher Rockstar Games has announced that the long-awaited casino in its GTA Online game will shortly be open for business. Fans of the free-roaming multi-player have been waiting a long time for this. Ever since the debut of the game, five years ago, a sign saying \u201copening soon\u201d has hovered over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":107058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,3313,19],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGTA Online: Rockstar Games Confirms Casino Opening<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"GTA Online casino is soon to open after more than a five-year wait, but it\u2019s likely to cause a stir for a game series that is never far from controversy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gta-online-rockstar-games-confirms-casino-opening\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GTA Online: Rockstar Games Confirms Casino Opening\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"GTA Online casino is soon to open after more than a five-year wait, but it\u2019s likely to cause a stir for a game series that is never far from controversy.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gta-online-rockstar-games-confirms-casino-opening\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-16T10:00:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-06-15T21:04:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/gta-casini.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"3840\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2160\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gta-online-rockstar-games-confirms-casino-opening\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gta-online-rockstar-games-confirms-casino-opening\/\",\"name\":\"GTA Online: Rockstar Games Confirms Casino Opening\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gta-online-rockstar-games-confirms-casino-opening\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gta-online-rockstar-games-confirms-casino-opening\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/gta-casini.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-06-16T10:00:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-06-15T21:04:36+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"GTA Online casino is soon to open after more than a five-year wait, but it\u2019s likely to cause a stir for a game series that is never far from controversy.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gta-online-rockstar-games-confirms-casino-opening\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gta-online-rockstar-games-confirms-casino-opening\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gta-online-rockstar-games-confirms-casino-opening\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/gta-casini.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/gta-casini.jpg\",\"width\":3840,\"height\":2160,\"caption\":\"The opening of Los Santos\u2019 first luxury casino in GTA Online is likely to have regulators tutting but this is a game series where controversy has always been par for the course. 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