Just... don't tell daddy, okay?
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I knew this would eventually happen. I really did. I even wanted to avoid it... as much as can be reasonably expected, anyway... but, well...

Yuji Horii is himself a gambling man by nature. His games therefore find a way to incorporate this into their very DNA. Every outing is a gamble, because you can't save unless you make it back to a church. So it's only natural that there should be actual, factual gambling within its confines. It's actually far rarer to wind up with a Dragon Quest game with no opportunities for conventional gambling at all... and remakes of older titles before the inclusion of such became standard would often find ways to put some in anyway.

But that's not even really the "point" in it all. It might be a gamble on the face of it, but you couldn't find better odds in any actual casino designed to actually make money. That doesn't mean it has to be EASY for you, though... if winnings come too readily, you not only upend the whole purpose to "gambling" in the first place, you're also short-circuiting your greater gameplay loop by trivializing the acquisition of high end gear through a totally alternate form of grinding.

Honestly, you're probably best off skipping it entirely.

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The trouble in most cases isn't so much the gambling as it is the limits on stakes. The key to winning big at any of the many casinos throughout the series... or just gambling opportunities in video games at large, really... is to find the biggest bet you can place and let the game grind itself until you get the outcome you were hoping for, sadly enough.

Poker might seem like the least luck-based game, offering some illusion of skillful play as a possibility... but you can only wager up to 10 per hand. Even with the opportunity to play double or nothing several times, this severely curtails your potential winnings. At which point, you're really just playing video poker... which means the odds are stacked against you. Heck, you can't even win your bet back on a certain minimum value high pair... you need TWO pair just to... win nothing, try again. Maybe double it by taking the side bet afterwards. So your odds of getting anywhere fast with this thing drop to nearly nothing.

Slot machines and I have a bit of a rocky relationship due to too much time wasted in Celadon City, but Dragon Quest slots are actually deceptively generous, even if you have to put in quite a bit to make them pay out to their full potential... I believe it's actually intentionally designed that in certain Dragon Quest games, your first spin of the slots is supposed to ALWAYS pay out... which is just there to underscore how unrealistic these casinos are.

In Yuji Horii's own words, “Games don’t lose when the player wins.” So, the goal isn't for the casino to bleed you dry... it's to give you a mildly amusing chance-based diversion that skews more than slightly in your favor... by design!

Of course, this only really pans out over the long run, so prepare to put a lot of time and cash on the line until then.

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But all that's secondary. It's not what makes this particular game's casino stand out among most others in the genre, including many other Dragon Quest games... the real main attraction is... the Monster Arena!

For whatever reason, you trade tokens for tickets... and tickets pay out tokens... so... you're basically just wagering your tokens anyway. (You'll never really lay your hands on a "ticket" anyway, so it's kinda weird that they bother to mention one at all anyway?)

How do you win, then? You are given a lineup of monsters and get to choose one to put your money behind... and then... they fight! It's a little confusing as a repurposed example of the regular battle engine, but all the monsters you're staring down are fighting each other for a change. If you successfully pick the last one standing, you earn the multiplier times your wager!

The important factor is that you can bet up to 50 at a time, which is already a huge leg up on poker. Besides that, you have the options to let your winnings ride and take them into the next round, giving you the chance at exponential growth on returns!

Granted... if you start thinking a little too hard about the long game and go chasing after big wins, you'll probably come up empty most of the time. For such a simplistic manner of selection and seemingly comforting and calculable odds, this game is pretty easy to upset. Then again, the rate at which the bets increase means that you only need one really good run of luck to make out big, and then you're out for good!

Remember, the goal in mind behind the casino isn't to beat you... it's to make you "work" to win out over it, so taking the long odds bet on a certain monster that occasionally might win can get you into enough earnings accumulated to retire early!

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Honestly, you're still probably best off skipping it entirely. (Including this very video?!)

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