Australia Blocks GTA Online Casino Ahead of Rockstar’s $8B Launch

GTA’s In-Game Gambling Systems Reckon With a New Age of Regulation

Rockstar Games has disabled GTA Online casino wagering for players in Australia, according to player reports and game code surfaced by dataminer Tex2. The territory-level restriction covers blackjack, roulette, three-card poker, slots, Inside Track horse racing, the Lucky Wheel and the Casino House, under a code flag reading Gambling_Restricted_Geographic. Australian players began reporting the change on July 28; Tex2 confirmed it the same day. Rockstar has not publicly explained it.

Players can still enter the Diamond Casino, buy and sell chips and collect 1,000 free chips daily – they simply cannot wager them, and attempts return a message reading “this feature is not available”. Private blackjack tables inside player penthouses are also disabled – and so is the Lucky Wheel, a once-daily free spin that costs nothing and awards vehicles and clothing rather than chips, and which forms part of the paid GTA+ subscription’s benefits.

When Rockstar introduced the Diamond Casino & Resort in July 2019, its gambling features were already switched off in a long list of countries. Rockstar has operated a market-by-market gambling switch for seven years, which remained prominent deep into the game’s life cycle – the company was still promoting chips and penthouses there in November 2025.

GTA Online was reclassified for Xbox Series X|S on July 22 through the automated IARC self-assessment system. It retained its R 18+ rating for high-impact violence, sexual content, drug use, and themes, but the resulting consumer advice does not list simulated gambling. Because Australia has required R 18+ classification and specific “high-impact simulated gambling” advice for such content since September 2024, disabling the features keeps the game inside the terms of its own new rating.

Alongside the classification rules, licensed online wagering operators in Australia have been barred since 11 June 2024 from accepting credit cards, credit-related products or digital currencies, including cryptocurrency, with fines up to $247,500 for non-compliance. The ban is due for government review after June 2026.

GTA VI arrives Nov. 19 on Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X|S at $79.99 (and the Ultimate Edition, widely considered the feature-complete version of the game, at $99.99), with preorders opened June 25, after slipping twice from an original spring 2025 target. It is the first mainline series entry since 2013, a year in which simulated-gambling classification rules, loot-box scrutiny, and age-assurance regimes did not exist in their current form.

Take-Two says the franchise has sold more than 470 million units, with GTA V alone at 230 million. The company reported fiscal 2026 net bookings of $6.72 billion, of which $5.20 billion – 78% – came from recurrent consumer spending rather than game sales. Notably, GTA Online (launched in 2013) still generates more than $150 million a quarter. Take-Two’s fiscal 2027 outlook of $8 billion to $8.2 billion, roughly 20% above last year, rests on the November launch.

The sequel’s preorder material only describes a single-player story following Jason and Lucia in the state of Leonida, says the title has not yet received a final age rating, and notes that availability can vary according to platform policies, regional regulations and age classifications. Rockstar has not announced an online component for GTA VI or confirmed whether the game will contain a casino, but the shape and success of the business as-is tells its own story.