Gambling is BROKEN in Fantasy

[@joekrampus1154]

I imagine a culture where wizards aren’t allowed in gambling circles, and you can face violent punishment if you’re suspected of wizardry, even if you’re just lucky, and another where gambling is taboo, because it “attracts witches”

[@chongwillson972]

@joekrampus1154 you know damn well; they will be using magic to fuck over people.

[@lostbutfreesoul]

Divinization magic doesn't have to be cast at the table, or sustained. Wake up and ask my god if today is the day I should go to the Casino and bet on 26, for a big win.... Does raise nice questions as to how such a god would be treated, many will load a dice for you. Or tell you the result of the next horse race....

[@CampingGrizzly]

This topic was addressed in a book series called sylver seeker, where there was a subtype of a specific gambling game where you used magic to cheat, and part of the game was that you could not say they were cheating unless you knew how they were cheating.

[@LeonardGreenpaw]

same thing in The Magicians

[@NicolaeHolley]

For Liar's Dice at a casino, you could include a 'dealer' who collects all dice lost by players and rolls them under his own (presumably larger) cup. He doesn't ever look at them, nor does he bet; he only exists to keep the dice pool at the same size, but at the same time, he also foils anyone using mind-reading more and more as the game goes on; more and more of the dice pool remains completely unknown until a challenge is made. Alternatively, the dealer simply has a 5-die cup, same as all the players, and just never looks at it or bets.

[@CoroHuh]

Or maybe players do not roll on their own and instead the dealer rolls then transfers the information via telepathy or something

[@twelfthknight]

One of the more interesting implications of D&D's whole weird concept of polytheism is that your fantasy world's gambling could very well be controlled by a deity of that specific luck/chance domain ala Tymora and their associated religious institutions. You as a patron can have literal faith that both those running the casino/temple and your fellow gamblers are all playing under the scrutiny of a divinity with a strong distaste for cheaters. I actually ran a short campaign where the souls of my player's former PCs all found themselves plucked away from their proper path to the afterlife and deposited into a Monte Carlo-style domain floating amidst the outer planes. Anyone can bet portions of their own existence (skills, abilities, memories, emotions, luck, etc) against other souls and the House to get a more favourable rebirth - or even a resurrection - by playing any game or competition imaginable so long as they're "fair". As in they're consented to freely by both participants and with the conditions of game agreed upon before beginning after which they're mystically bound by those condition like a geas. It was pretty cool, used it to setup what the characters would be like in the next extended campaign -- their virtues, flaws, and unique talents.

[@chameleonx9253]

1. Place an anti-magic field around the casino (this has the incidental effect of the house not being able to cheat either). 2. Place a nondetection spell on any roulette wheels or lottery equipment, so divinations can't pick them up. 3. Employ dedicated diviners of your own to proactively identify people who WILL cheat, so you can warn the staff to watch out for them. 4. Invent a spell that makes people glow when they cast a spell, and cast it on everyone who enters. The color of the glow reveals what school of magic the spell is. 5. Have dealers wear magic items that make them immune to enchantments and illusions.

[@chrispy6276]

Wouldn't an anti-magic field around the casino render the other four magical cheating countermeasures inert?

[@chameleonx9253]

@chrispy6276 It depends how big the field is, but yes. These aren't necessarily meant to all be used in conjunction. Some casinos might want to reserve the ability to use magic to cheat on their behalf while preventing customers from doing the same, so they might choose to use one or more of the other methods instead.

[@SorowFame]

The house can still cheat, not having access to magic doesn’t stop real casinos.

[@water2770]

The issues with those is that they sound Exponentially more expensive than what our current Casinos use, and thus Casinos would have to increase the odds considerably to pay for the increase in cost... Which would make people less likely to go to a Casino... which then spirals into a feedback loop and thus a Casino probably couldn't exist unless it was a cabal of mages who decided to use their magical might to make a Casino instead of doing ANYTHING else.

[@SorowFame]

@@water2770 they’d be used to it in their world, an anti-magic field would probably be considered basic security.

[@Aichi1138]

Of the magics you cover, You focus a lot on enchantment magic, Illusion magic, and divination magic, and each of these are indeed quite powerful... but the most mundane magic you never address: Transmutation/alteration Altering all the dice at the table before they are cast to be specifically weighted, or applying an arcane mark to a specific roulette pit and then a magical attraction to that pit on the ball Illusion may be king of subtlety, But transmutation always lets you have the homefield advantage by making the house Yours

[@viktormadzov5286]

On inportant thing to keep in mind about gambling in fantasy worlds. The races that invendid it (most likely humans), likely had no widespread acces to magic for most of there history. Races like Elfs, fey and other natural magical species likely never developed gambling as we know it. That is to say, whey would deffinetly have wagers, but non of those would be based on pure chance, and rather would be of the "do you have the ability or intilact to pull it off' type of thing. Humans on the other hand would deffintly have normal gambling for a while, right up to the point where magic becomes more available and commanplace to them. After that, most games of chance would become extinct for a good long while, until humans develope new games and new methods for eather detecting or minimizing the advantige of magic

[@no_one_listening9864]

I'd argue that in the wager of "I bet I can hit that tree with this rock" the use of magic to win is not cheating as the wager is my skill vs you disbelief in me as such the use of magic might be considered fair as magic is most of the time a skill you have

[@rodrigonoffs1369]

"I bet you can't hit that tree with firebolt" School of scribes wizard with spellsniper and levels in warlock:

[@jonathancrosby1583]

Depends on context but more importantly GUYS I FOUNT THE FAE TEMPTOR

[@TheCAL-dx4tr]

I figure high end casinos might pay for an antimagic field on their premises to stop mages from cheating

[@o.o5834]

And a high roller magic variants of gambling games

[@NicolaeHolley]

Came here to say this.

[@reubenthenerd1815]

A single casting of zone of truth can force everyone to swear that they have not cheated

[@gentlemanjimgm]

This is how I typically handle fantasy casino situations. Cashing out your chips sees you enter a booth where you turn in your chips, zone of truth confirmation, and then you get your money (or forfeit it if you cheated). I am fine with making exceptions for when players want to cheat using slight of hand or some such method. My ZoT method is just a means to keep the story from devolving into, "we're professional poker players, now."

[@CaedmonOS]

​@@gentlemanjimgmI can already think of a easy way to get around this. Cheat, get the chips, pass those chips onto someone else, and then have them claim that they did not cheat.

[@gentlemanjimgm]

@@CaedmonOS Fair enough - "Are you in any way attempting to defraud this casino or otherwise pass off chips not rightfully won at casino sanctioned games?" I'd argue that this is moving the goalposts but it wouldn't take a casino long to adapt its security practices to plug holes.

[@patrickmcathey7081]

It's a low dc wisdom save. The realistic best dc you could have is 19. A ring of spell shielding makes you sol.

[@Primalmoon]

@@patrickmcathey7081 Ok, zone of truth, a complicated question, plus they strip you to make sure you're not wearing any magical artifacts at the time they ask, while there are a bunch of enforcers ready to introduce you to their weapons if you're caught... Even if you can still succeed at your check, as long as it isn't certain, are you sure you want to risk failing that save while unarmed and naked?

[@CitanulsPumpkin]

I like using both modern and archaic countermeasures. Any big organization that runs a serious casino has either layered the entire gaming floor with antimagic fields or they employ their own diviners to find and track cheaters. Just like modern casinos use cutting-edge surveillance state tech to monitor their game rooms. As for less organized and funded casino operations, the gods of luck, chaos, games, and sportsmanship have their own hit squads of celestials and inevitables that hunt life long cheaters who don't at least pay lip service to those gods in other aspects of their lives. Also, magic is obvious and noticeable unless there is a specific player ability that conceals it. A slight of hand check isn't going to let you hide casting a leveled spell. You need metamagic or psionics for that.

[@cwsigmund]

They wouldn't really even need anti-magic, just like irl casinos don't need to ban card counters until they actually count cards in a game. They can have a gaming floor that causes any kind of magic to glow (spells, items, creatures, etc...). Then, if they catch you actually using the magic they do whatever that world's casino security do to cheaters. I would have the casino security require checking any magic items and creatures at the door unless it's shown to be either harmless or medically required before folks could even get in the door.

[@ferrisffalcis]

I think the funniest interpretation is that the casino itself uses magic to manipulate luck. Make a very enticing looking game and cast a misfortune spell on the machine, turn every casino into a wizard mind battle. Have the people who are skilled with magic get kicked out of the building like those who count cards in real casinos. So on, so forth.

[@jy3n2]

Worldbuilding idea: there are contexts where cheating is explicitly expected, and some games are even designed with the assumption that everyone will be cheating. A common form of magical contest involves trying to take the other caster's chips before losing all of your own. At certain casinos (either in general or at specific tables), the games are openly rigged and players are invited to cheat back. This is common in jurisdictions where gambling is forbidden, since this aspect makes it technically a game of skill. ESPer training after all students have developed basic telepathy often involves bluffing games to practice mastery of one's own thoughts. 10:21 And that is where Dragon Poker came from.

[@soren3569]

The Myth-/MYTH series by Robin Lynn Aspirin was a comedic fantasy series. One of the books heavily features a game of Dragon Poker. There's two aspects of the game: 1: The casino itself has copious overlays of anti-magic and magic detection, to prevent wizards from monkeying with the game directly. 2: The rules of the game are so intricately Byzantine that a large part of the game's skill factor is knowing all of the rules that apply conditional modifiers to the cards. At least a few of these conditions included things like the number of players, the direction of an individual player's chair, and so on. Since some of these are behavioral (such as a player dropping out three hands in, or whatever), they would be quite difficult to pierce with precognitive magic. The protagonist's 'play style' is to just observe the other players to determine whether or not they are bluffing, then when cards are flipped up, he just gets a smug expression on his face, which causes all the other players to try to figure out why he's so happy with what often is just a crap hand--and they go through all the modifiers on his behalf, until it's determined who actually won. SPOILER: It turns out that a key game at the beginning of the novel was rigged by the casino with mundane marked cards. The casino owner was highly successful in this method because everyone was SO focused on magical cheating that mundane methods just got ignored.

[@sluggaboyzWC3]

Something that oddly enough can mess with future sight is several sets in the same game, basically best 5of9 would pull out any clairvoyance and having betting pools that are lower than materiel component requirements. As for animal races, have a minimum wait time that they must be under observation and or checking to make sure none of the animals have been tampered with.

[@kelpiekit4002]

I'd love high end gambling embracing it. You do the gambling, rolling under a cup, and before the result is shown everyone writes on a slip of paper how they're cheating and hands it to the GM. People roll for those cheats as needed and anyone detected cheating is removed. So the precog knows what it landed on, but it's already been set to something else by a mage hand, which also doesn't matter as an illusion has been cast over the dice, which is also negated by a charm on the dealer, if it had worked, though the blackmail on him is still in effect, which hardly matters when the illusioned die is magically switched out with a trick dice, etc. Cheating is its own gambling afterall.

[@albsi7630]

In my world building world magic can be seen by some spells and artefacts for extended periods of time. So every gambling table that is somewhat organized has one or two people that just watch the process and all involved paid by the organizer, winner or with the buy in. People that are trained in seeing magic can even determine the nature of spells. So healling would be fine, but anything to manipulate the game will get you kicked out and you will lose items of value that you carry. And maybe even be beaten or dragged to some authority or guards.

[@RyuuKageDesu]

The whole time, I'm thinking about taking it the opposite direction, where even wild magic is incorporated into the game pieces, and everyone is expected to try cheating, if they can get away with it.

[@rylandrc]

Just have a deity of gambling backing up all the gambling places. No foresight allowed on those holy gambling grounds.

[@sleepinggiant4062]

Like real casinos, any way used to cheat would be stopped. Detect magic could be used and any magic detected would stop play. If you want to get fancy, an antimagic aura could be used. You cannot cast illusions at the table to change cards unless you are a sorcerer using subtle spell. Even then, all focI and component pouches would be collected at the door. You would have to sneak a material component in and not be seen using it. This can be prevented with mundane means. Spells work on warforged, so they should also work on Cogswell. Interesting topic!

[@cwsigmund]

Another consideration that to me kinda opposes the premise of the video a bit is that for casinos, as for most other ventures, the most effective path is to put systems and procedures in place to protect against the lowest hanging fruit of stealing/cheating. Then, security and surveillance are trained and equipped to quickly and easily recognize the various methods of cheating. As cheating methods become more and more complicated or skill-dependent, it ends up becoming not very cost-effective. It's not sensible to create/buy systems to protect against cheating that fewer and fewer of the potential player-base would even be capable of pulling off. Finally, any casino I create would reserve the right to back-off/ban any players for any reason, but usually for even just suspecting them of cheating. It would not take very long, while observing a player who has forseen the order of cards dealt, for example, for me as a surveillance officer to see an unusual pattern in their betting/play and send a security officer to investigate and possibly "back-off" the player.

[@kovi567]

How to solve the gambler's/ cheater's parable? Make the game work outside of their influence. When people hear gambling they usually think dice or cards, even though in reality most bets are made on things like horse races, cock fights, boxing matches, and the like. Use DA ORB to basically make TV. --> Show the thing the people are betting on. --> This negates most magic that deals with the outcome itself like telekinesis, magic that gathers information like mind reading, or magic that would deal with the opposition like charm. What you are left with is divination, which tells you the future, which then raises the question if that future can be changed, and if yes, then why was it shown, and then realize that you are getting into the time traveler's parable and have to delete clairvoyance from your entire setting because it doesn't make logical sense. There. Problem solved. :P

[@xornxenophon3652]

Really depends on the number of magic-users present. It is probably far more likely to meet someone who cheats with mundane means than a magic-user who uses his arcane powers to cheat at gambling.

[@ggdynfytugfy6892]

Normal solution: use extensive warding to prevent cheating via magic Cool solution: the house starts cheating too. It’s all games of skill and the skill is cheating.

[@jonathancrosby1583]

A permanent anti magic effect im sure an interprising enough wizard or warlock would work to add private sanctum s anti divination effects onto instruments of games of chance

[@thegarunixking1101]

Would it be possible to come up with countermeasures against mind reading? Depends on the main system, sure, but especially in situations where you're expecting it, I could imagine a practice of literal double thinking to confuse people using Detect Thoughts

[@Stephen-Fox]

"People generally prefer to have something of a say in the outcome" ...People who enjoy games, absolutely. I'm not convinced that's universal, however, due to the popularity of LCR in some circles. Which is a game that a) lasts forever b) has zero choices and c) exits purely to be a minimum excuse to gather at someone's house and talk.

[@everwinter0]

It is also worth considering that there may be casinos that specifically do not have countermeasures against magic, since only magicians go there, and the casino itself works for a percentage of the bets (you buy chips for a dollar, sell for 90 cents, I do not know what it is called correctly). A kind of place where magicians can compete in their magic and skills more than luck. Such competitions can even be broadcast on magic balls as a sports competition "The most secretive magician".

[@eng20h]

I think a good Solution would be to hace gambling houses at the temple of a god of Fortune. Gamesa of chance would be sacred tonthis god AND cheaters would be seen as blasphemers that Will incur the Gods wrath

[@TheNoobRapter]

Two of my favorite rpg things, sessions based in a casino, and knocking magic users down a peg.

[@MauroDraco]

Very valid points and even cooler ideas! Thanks, Tom!

[@rowanbowers5743]

Now I see it going the other way, magic specific gambling where you use magic to play the game. Someone suggested cheaters dice (everyone is cheating, you can only call someone out if you know how) which is one way, the other could be school or tradition based. Like a Druid's game could be growing a bonsai tree from a seed with a time limit and betting on the amount of branches (assuming spells that grow thing don't allow influence over it's growth) or a Diviner's game where every player chooses a time and place and must bet on the fate of the area (arbitrated by either literally waiting it out, or by a third party Diviner) the games prevent cheating because the players can't invest their magic in two places at once (assuming the DND rules)

[@tiagotiagot]

Maybe a simple format would be casinos charging a participation fee, with cheating being an expected part of the the games, but with a rule that if the casino figures out how you cheated, all your earnings get redistributed among the other players. So the house always wins because it doesn't have to pay out as players are waging against each other after already giving the casino it's share, and cheating is kept at a moderate level as it has to walk a thin line between being effective enough to win but not powerful enough to stand out. Essentially keeping a facade of it being games of chance, but with everyone playing it as a game of skill, with the luck factor being just the skills and performance of the other players.

[@Aichi1138]

So in short: To stop magic cheating, Use more magic than the cheater?

[@rianfelis3156]

There is also substantial overlap between preventing cheating at gambling, and preventing shoplifting. Any society will have an incentive to develop magics to counter any of the more common ideas, and to have them widely available to people either gambling or running a shop.

[@tiagotiagot]

Think of the classic Jedi lightsaber duel; flourishes trying to produce cascading exponentially branching feints far into the future, to the point where the opponent loses by getting too distracted by the combinatorics explosion of possibilities to notice what is happening at the present and fails to react in time, or jump the gun and falls for a trap by failing to see all the possibilities or not looking far enough into the future, or comes to the conclusion they've been checkmated even before the first move. Very advanced abstract computing science and game theory knowledge would be required to design a game with rules such that it is mathematically impossible to obtain perfect knowledge even with the ability to predict the future as long as more than one person with precognition and/or mind-reading is playing; and of course, things would need to be fine-tuned to ensure on average the house always win, and the losses never surpass what the house can afford to payout temporarily between the bigger wins. Additionally, something like asymmetric cryptography techniques would need to be involved in order to have the honesty of the game result be many orders of magnitude easier to verify than the effort required to reach that result without playing by the rules.

[@SkylerLinux]

Talking about the Fun of Gambling, I mean most Drinking Games are just gambling but for your Liver and Cognition. I've done Lier's Dice as a drinking game, very fun

[@lostbutfreesoul]

Terry Pratchett taught me respect for Gambling in Fantasy universes. Go see what happened to the followers of the Lady.... Now, do you want to cheat her? This is, likely, the only situation in which Gabling and Magic could coexist... a divine power keeping things fair. For those who don't want to look up a great set of work: The followers of the Lady, whom should not be named, have their temples burning down all the time. Imagine how bad of luck it is for solid stone to just... melt like that... and then wonder. If that happens to those who are asking favour to change the outcome of a chance event.... What happens to those whom try and force the ladies hand?

[@patrickmcathey7081]

Several issues but the big one is gift of gab and timestop wish miracle. Also halflings and luck charms and heroic inspiration which now ALL HUMANS get at the start of each day

[@beor2193]

I think this is like technology or skill in reality. It works if they don't find out. You shouldn't trust strangers, they might be a hidden master of the proposed game. But it can be as simple as invoking the god of gambling to oversee the game. For evils casinos, maybe a devil or a hag is enough. Imagine signing a contract before playing. For a high end place the game is maybe played in a beholder's dream, good luck cheating. Then you can get creatures and plants sensitive to psionics and magic. You could get magical and psionics guards, or devices detecting or preventing magic. Like everyone holds a stone that heats up and shines by the mana bleeding of spells. You could have increased complexity of the game, with multiple elements inducing more randomness to make any single future more uncertain (it depends on if there are multiple possible futures, and if not, then can future be changed). You could take poison or stimulants limiting spellcasting or concentration. You could take steps to prevent outside communication. You could bet on hard to influence phenomena, like maybe radioactive or magical decay. You could prevent direct line of sight to the game and the other participants. You could bet on dragons, who are particularly fussy about interference with their mating rituals, while observation from afar is inconsequential. Or it could be a free-for all, where you can try to cheat, but at major events crime organisations and nations are your opponents, as well as dragons, demi-gods and other powerful individuals, and the goal is to get a result without getting caught and everything devolving into a brawl or war.

[@sketchasaurrex4087]

A big problem is that magic gets handwaved all too often as something subtle. It takes multiple metamagic abilities in D&D with a deception check to hide that you're using magic. Magic is very obvious and eye catching, requires verbal and gestures that tell what type of spell is being cast.

[@gmchris3752]

One important element that I don't think was touched on is Luck. Not only is it mechanically represented in many games (in 5e, the lucky feat and halfling luck), but many fantasy settings treat luck as something more real than it is in our world. Setting magic aside, luck as a semi-reliable force would fundamentally alter gambling. Perhaps magical "coolers" are employed to keep things even. Perhaps halflings and other people thought lucky are banned. Perhaps lucky people are just accepted and the house only uses games that give them a guaranteed cut or have such lopsided odds that "lucky" players still statistically tend to pay the house.

[@ArvelDreth]

Anyone with the ritual caster feat can cast detect magic as a ritual and foil any magical cheating without ever needing a spell slot.

[@Richinnameonly]

There are very easy ways to get truesight so I think a lot of the illusions wouldn't work. Familiars can be used for surveillance and people that break the "rules" get their legs broken just like real life. There are always ways to detect undetectable things too like magic mouth, or talking doll.

[@wereguy]

I think you're making a huge assumption about how future-sight works. In many cases, you see the most likely outcome. In games of pure chance, like craps or the lottery, that makes what you see completely useless. For games of skill and subterfuge, like poker, it seems like anti-magic fields or non-detection spells would be your best bet.

[@patrickmcathey7081]

My suggestion, sports better on a different plain. You have everyone place their bets 24 hours before the. You have the game played either on a private demi plane or dimension anchor. You have a contingency set up to planeshift either a red or blue toljen based on the outcome of the game. Except wish miracle I can't think of any magic that can impact cross plane and 24 hours invalidates the duration of most orecog.

[@Voxdalian]

The thing about using Mage Hand for cheating doesn't work unless you're an Arcane Trickster, for anyone else, Mage Hand is visible.

[@ridleykiller1994]

I think your camera forgot its glasses 💜

[@CoroHuh]

Imagine if fantasy gambling houses hired professional cheaters to take the other players' money and to detect if there is an unpermitted cheater

[@Rabidconscience]

I’ve never understood how counting cards is considered cheating.

[@jbg9226]

It isnt, it is a completely legitimate strategy. Many casinos will throw you out if you do it though, as it tips the scale in your favor. But you wont get arrested or sued, and they cant take your winning away though, as you won it legitimately. They are still a private establishment, so they can choose if they want to serve you or not.

[@GallowglassAxe]

I think you went a little too complicated on the pure chance game. You could play the Japanese game Cho-Han or Even Odds. All you need is a cup and 2d6. The dealer throws the dice in the cup and places it on the table. Players then bet whether the total of the two dice are even or odd. They can't use telekinesis because they can't see the dice. Can't mind read because nobody even the dealer shouldn't know what the results are. Granted there are slight of hand tricks like swapping a loaded dice but the Yakuza have essentially a ceremony around on how to prevent that.

[@JacobOphir]

Anti-Magic Field

[@tumulterudition3228]

Couldn't games of chance be treated as a sport between practitioners of divination magic?

[@agent7466]

Magic breaks most norms and would have set our world on a vastly diffenet course had it existed in the sense that it does in ttrpgs. Id reccommend more B-Roll for your vids. Seems to be a distinct lack of visuals compared to literally everyother channel and it seems to be negatively affecting your popularity. Just watching an explanation is fine, but majority of people need more tham just audio to get things into their head.

[@wereguy]

Also, it sounds like your sponsor just put a Ghibli skin on Tales from the Floating Vagabond.

[@prancinNOOB]

Why did you just say magic words and then your cards turned gold for a moment?

[@superawesomegoku6512]

Ayy First Comment!