‘Vegas Stakes’ Prepared Me for a World of Rampant Gambling
Despite the Super Nintendo’s selection of seminal RPGs, platformers, and action games, I used to rent Vegas Stakes and mindlessly play slot machines or roulette for hours on end.
The game’s impressive presentation helped hook me, but I was enthralled by the mere idea of gambling—that you could travel to a magical place like Las Vegas and bet actual money on these games. Vegas Stakes and the movie Casino did a lot to paint Las Vegas as a city like no other, where you could win big or get savagely beaten and buried alive in the desert (that one’s from the Scorsese film).
I realize now, however, that Vegas Stakes was teaching me the rules of several games that I’d one day be able to gamble actual money on from the comfort of home, on the same device I’m typing this newsletter on. Legalized gambling has kicked the doors down in the last few years, no longer relegated to casinos and someone you knew at work who knew a bookie. It’s all out there in the open now.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m a big ol’ asshole, but I think betting your rent on a blackjack hand shouldn’t be as easy as booting up Vegas Stakes and playing make-believe.
But what do I know? I’m a guy that played Vegas Stakes instead of Chrono Trigger.
I wasn’t some Doogie Howser version of Danny Ocean, consumed by seven-card stud and breaking the bank; I just liked video games a lot, and this one got its hooks in me. I rented it again and again.
Vegas Stakes is a masterclass in taking a handful of games that have been around forever and packaging them into something worthwhile, adorning the experience with bells and whistles, manipulating the player’s attention so they don’t immediately realize how hollow the gameplay was. Just like a real casino!
Later systems like the Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 also offered casino games — but without the framing device and attention to detail that Vegas Stakes had, they’re all just generic collections asking players to care about fake money for no reason, never becoming more than the sum of their parts. Though it’s undeniably thin, Vegas Stakes’ story mode gives you a reason to care and keep playing.
A car full of attractive people is heading to Vegas. Never mind how we met or what anybody’s deal is—it’s just happening. It’s like the beginning of Skyrim, but instead of a horse-drawn wagon, it’s a two-door car filled with five people, and, instead of a dragon, it’s the allure of becoming a millionaire that swirls around the air and captivates everyone’s attention.
You check into your hotel, call one of your friends, and hit the town. Vegas Stakes offers four casinos, with a fifth unlocked once you make enough money to be deemed a high roller. This is where the game shines, with each casino giving a different vibe to the proceedings.
My favorite is the Buffalo Head, a honky-tonk joint with some of the most rousing shit-kicking music you’ll hear on the SNES:
The sci-fi Blade Runner-esque casino is another obvious highlight. It’s called The 2020. But no one is wearing a mask or playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Time, that cruel bitch, has rendered The 2020 wildly inaccurate, but I do still like the futuristic atmosphere it provides.
The smartest thing Vegas Stakes does is stage interactions between you and other people in the casino, setting up little multiple-choice mini-adventures that keep the gameplay fresh. People will interrupt you once in a while and ask if you recognize them, or if they may kindly clean a stain off of your shirt.
Sometimes it works out. Tell a person you remember them and they might say they owe you their life and give you their winnings from the night. I guess they’re drunk and you kind of pass for their mentor. Easy money!
Often though (as is the case with the shirt wiper) they pickpocket you. There probably wasn’t ever a stain on your shirt. It’s hard to come out on top in the fundamentally unfair world of gambling.
I dabble in sports gambling, ever since it became legal and easy. I put 100 bucks into DraftKings when basketball or football starts, and I ride it into the ground, usually having pissed it all away a few weeks into the season. One day while poking around and figuring out my bets, I realized there was a whole casino section on the website. If I don’t want to wait for tonight’s Pistons game to start, I can easily PayPal myself some chips and play Vegas Stakes, DraftKings-style.
It’s a lot like the video game I played as a kid, except the money is real and no one is coming by to talk to you/possibly hand you more money.
30 years after the game’s release, Vegas is every bit the destination town for gambling portrayed in Vegas Stakes. What’s changed more drastically is the world around it. As gambling infiltrates and instantly corrupts professional sports, I wonder if and when we’ll start to learn about the long-term effects of turning everybody’s desktop computer into a casino terminal.
If you don’t think that’s a dangerous game to play with society, please allow me to wipe that stain off your shirt for you.
Skitching the Elephant shirt available here: