Australian GTA Online gamers are reporting they have been blocked from in-game playing options, which means they’ll not play blackjack, roulette or three card poker within the Diamond Casino, amongst different mini-games. Users making an attempt to entry these mini-games are actually hit with a “this feature is not available for you” notification.
Following widespread studies of the ban, GTA Online dataminer Tex2 unearthed the relevant code, clearly displaying a territory-based restriction on Casino House, Three Card Poker, Inside Track, Lucky Wheel, Blackjack, Roulette and Slots.
In Australia, video games with simulated playing want to hold an R18+ classification, which GTA Online has all the time accomplished. In GTA Online, gamers need to buy Casino Chips with GTA$, which may be earned in-game or by way of the acquisition of Shark Cash Cards with actual cash. Money gained within the Diamond Casino can’t be transformed again into actual cash—in different phrases, you can’t gamble for large actual world wins in GTA Online, no less than not legally and throughout the bounds of Rockstar’s phrases of service—although it is doable to make use of actual cash on the simulated playing.
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In different phrases, as distasteful as it might be to some, GTA Online’s in-game playing is technically authorized in Australia. That stated, the block on in-game playing does arrive at a time when the Australian federal authorities is clamping down on online gambling harms. There’s each likelihood it is a preemptive measure.
There’s additionally one other issue: As one consumer within the GTA Forums notes, GTA Online was re-classified for Xbox on July 22 utilizing the automated IARC score system. The new shopper recommendation would not embrace “high impact gambling”, which it might have to if the Diamond Casino options had been accessible.
I’ve reached out to Rockstar for an announcement on the ban.
If the ban proves everlasting, Australia will be a part of a reasonably sizeable listing of nations the place GTA Online’s simulated playing is not accessible, together with South Africa, Poland, China, Argentina and extra. It additionally seems fairly doubtless that if GTA 6’s eventual on-line part has simulated playing, Australia will not get to entry it.