How to make money in GTA 5 Online with the arcade? And how to get the most money from the casino heist? We will show you here.
What kind of content is this? The casino heist is a robbery in the world of GTA 5 Online, Los Santos. To start it, you need an arcade.
Making money with a free arcade – Vault, Control Terminal
This is what the arcade brings: The basement of the arcade is mainly used for planning and storing the casino heist content. The planning board is located there, where you can select your approach. The garage also provides space for escape vehicles.
In the arcade itself, you can set up machines and play video games on them.
Can you make money with the arcade? With the basic business, the slot machines, you won’t make significant revenues. Your vault can hold a maximum of 50,000 GTA dollars. Every 48 minutes, it automatically generates 5,000 GTA dollars. That barely finances a few bulletproof vests and ammunition needed for the heist.
It quickly becomes clear that the casino heist is the core business of the arcades. That’s where the big money is made. But an important feature of the arcade awaits in the basement: the main control terminal.
What can the main control terminal do? The device costs 1,740,000 GTA dollars and significantly facilitates your work if you already own various businesses.
The terminal gives you control over all other businesses like the nightclub, gunrunning, cocaine, meth, weed, money laundering, hangar, vehicle deliveries and warehouse missions.
So, you no longer need to drive to each business to buy supplies; you can do it through the control terminal.
Is the control terminal worth it? If you have several businesses spread far across the map of GTA Online, then the terminal is worth it. It saves you long drives and thus a lot of money. Because if you can consolidate all businesses in one location, you grind more effectively.
Which arcade to buy? The prices of arcades range from 1,235,000 GTA dollars (Pixel Pete’s – Paleto Bay) to prices over 2 million GTA dollars if you want to buy an arcade in the city.
Sell/Change arcade: Anyone who is dissatisfied with the arcade they purchased can change it. Complaints come from players who got the free arcade with Twitch Prime because it is located at the top in Paleto Bay. Therefore, there is always a long way to go from the arcade to missions or other interesting points on the map.
Just bring up your phone, select “Internet”, and then choose a new arcade from Foreclosure. But keep in mind that these can be quite expensive to acquire.
Casino Heist Guide – How to maximize your money
The preparation: First, you meet Lester in Mirror Park. He will contact you in the game. This is practically the preparation mission to unlock and start the arcade and casino heist.
The Start – Surveying the Casino and Finding Points of Interest
One of the first missions requires you to survey the casino that you will soon be breaking into in detail. For this, photograph the guy from the parking service, cameras, guards, entrances, and more.
You will find important doors on the roof of the casino and at the rooftop terrace. In addition, the entrance for the money transporters and the tunnel entrance should be photographed.
Where you can find all these points, we will show you here:
Gold, Diamonds, Money, Art – What’s in the Vault?
After surveying the casino, you should check what loot is in the vault. For this, hack a guard’s phone and then gain access to the surveillance cameras in the casino.
Whether gold, money, or art can be found in the vault depends on your luck. It’s all down to chance.
| Loot | Payment (normal) | Payment (hard) |
| Cash | 2,115,000 GTA dollars | 2,326,500 |
| Art | 2,350,000 GTA dollars | 2,585,000 |
| Gold | 2,585,000 GTA dollars | 2,843,500 |
| Diamonds | 3,290,000 GTA dollars | 3,619,000 |
How to get Diamonds? In February 2020, Rockstar unlocked the diamonds in the casino heist. You now receive them once guaranteed as loot, after that they are said to have an 8% chance of appearing as vault contents according to insider reports.
Choose approach – What preparation?
What are the differences? When preparing for the heist, you face the question of whether to choose “Silent & Stealth”, “Big Con”, or “Aggressive” as your approach for the heist.
- With “Aggressive”, you enter the casino with loud firepower and explosions, and also exit that way.
- With “Silent & Stealth”, you gain secret access to the building and preferably exit unnoticed.
- With “Big Con”, you disguise yourselves and go with disguises like Group Six gear into the casino to empty the vault and then escape.
What preparations should you unlock? For each approach, you can unlock patrol routes, Duggan deliveries, electric drills, masks, and many other optional preparations. But what do you really need?
If you are traveling as a small team, electric drills are unnecessary, for you will not have the time to drill open the safes. You will be busy hacking and collecting other loot.
Our recommendations on which optional goals you should unlock are shown in the following table.
| Option | Aggr. | Stealth | Con |
| Pat. Routes | – | X | X |
| Dug. Deliveries | X | X | – |
| Security Info | – | X | X |
| Elec. Drill | – | – | – |
| Masks | – | – | – |
| Young Ancestor | – | – | – |
| Group 6 Gear | – | – | X |
| Security Pass S2 | X | X | X |
| Noose Equipment | – | – | X |
| EMP | – | X | – |
| Infiltration Suits | – | X | – |
| Maintenance Equipment | – | – | – |
| Fire Equipment | – | – | – |
| Armor Upgrade | X | – | – |
Assemble a Crew – Who to Choose?
What are the differences? In each heist, you choose which NPCs to include in your crew. The better their skills, the higher your share of the loot. So it’s worth choosing wisely.
A good hacker is particularly important as he gives you more time in the vault. But should you choose Avi Schwartzman or Paige? Find out here:
How to assemble the best crew for the casino heist in GTA Online.
9 Tips and Tricks for the Casino Heist in GTA 5 Online
A collection of tricks I wish I had known earlier with casino heists in GTA 5 Online:
- For the preparation missions, the armored Kuruma is still recommended
- You can disable a maximum of one security camera without triggering an alarm
- Temporarily disable security cameras with the stun gun
- Assign one player to handle hacking in the vault (use this guide for fingerprints)
- When the timer in the vault ticks under 20 seconds, abandon the loot search and exit the room so you can be outside on time without triggering the alarm
- If the escape vehicles are to the right of the racetrack, run directly on the track and follow the path around the curve – Don’t take detours
- The Big Con works best as Group 6 disguise and Noose escape disguise
- It’s best to use the farthest buyer as the escape is very easy
- The Sentinel escape vehicles of the cheapest driver should be your choice when escaping
The Easiest Escape? Take This Route!
After several attempts to escape from the police with 5 stars, my group was fed up. One of my colleagues had the idea to just hide in the sewers until the stars went away. And lo and behold: It works.
This is how the easiest escape succeeds: Run out of the building to the escape vehicles and drive straight into the sewer. The entrance to it is only a few hundred meters from the casino and is easy to reach. Drive slowly through or wait in the middle. When the stars disappear, exit from the other end and head to the buyer.
Because this escape through the trick is so easy, it’s worth it every time to visit the farthest buyer to maximize profit.
If you have any more tips for the casino heist or the arcade, please let us know in the comments. We will show you more ways to make a lot of money in GTA Online on MeinMMO: GTA Online Money Making: How to Get Rich Quickly
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