Ever wondered what was the game Han Solo played when he won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian? Ever asked yourself what were the rules of the game Chewbacca was so upset about in the New Hope? Well, take a seat young padawan, and we will uncover the secrets of gambling in Star Wars Universe. To begin with, the Star Wars franchise goes far beyond the movies, and for those of you who did not read ten novels describing the life of the devil-looking alien at Mos Eisley cantina, it might be quite exciting to find out more about the games they play in the galaxy far-far away, so buckle up.
Pazaak
The first thing you need to know about is Pazaak. That is quite an ancient game, like if our real-life Blackjack was invented by dinosaurs or something, and its rules did not change a bit over the centuries. Pazaak actually is similar to Blackjack – it is a card game of chance and numbers. One place you can find it in, is the Knights of the Old Republic game.
It happens thousands of years before the events of the original trilogy, and as a player, you can go and play it in the Club Vertica Casino on Nar-Shaddaa, one of the planets open for your exploration. You can check some reviews for the new casino online that feature games from fictional or fantastic worlds like Star Wars, The Lord of the Ring, etc.. Check out the reviews for the best new casinos and the games they feature to know exactly where to find Pazaak and other Star Wars-themed games. The reviews help by saving your time so you can jump straight into the thing you need. These new online casinos have every game imaginable, but what would Anakin Skywalker say to that?
Well, he’d probably just kill all the men, women, and children, too, if he’d lose a single credit in there. So, in Pazaak, you have your personal deck of cards with different numbers: some cards add numbers, some cards subtract the total number. Your goal is to get as close as possible to a total of 20 without going bust, just like in Blackjack but with a bit of a spin.
Jubilee Wheel
Talking about the spin. Another exciting game described in Star Wars legends is a Jubilee Wheel, mostly popular on the planet Spira. Like Pazaak, it has a real-world counterpart – roulette. Yes, the Jubilee Wheel is a variation of roulette, and it is only mentioned in a couple of books like Jedi Apprentice: The Deadly Hunter. There are no video games featuring this game, but you can go and try to play online casinos that might be featuring it. The new online casinos do a great job collecting all sorts of games for the players to enjoy, and you can actually go and find the Jubilee Wheel somewhere in there. This game has quite peculiar rules, though. So, there’s a wheel with 100 numbers, the players place a bet on a single number, and the wheel starts to spin.
When the ball lands, the player who guessed the right number wins the bank. In case the player was five numbers close to the winning number, and nobody else was, the player takes half of the bank. But what if a Jedi came in to play that game? Or just someone attuned with the Force? Will they let people who can actually see the future play the game? Well, first thing’s first, the real Jedi never gamble. It is more likely that a Grey Jedi would try to pull that off or maybe even a Sith. Wouldn’t it be easier for the Sith to just conquer the entire planet and seize its goods then?
Holotable
The other exciting game featured in the Star Wars universe is a Holotable. Yes, that’s the one that upset Chewie. The movies do not really describe the rules of that game and it is shown briefly in several films and TV series, but the idea is this. The game kind of resembles Chess but it’s more than that. The players have a selection of different holograms on the table, each of whom represents a specific creature from across the galaxy. You can see Rancor as one of the playable figures. You move those figures around, just like in Chess, and if your figure gets beaten, the holograms will gruesomely kill each other and disappear. It would be great if they added it on Xbox One 5 dollar games list or something. That would be a great opportunity for many players to enjoy this awesome game. Or maybe some of these new online casinos would come up with something like that.
Star Wars is an incredibly rich universe, it evolved into its own thing far past what George Lucas first imagined, and right now, there are countless books, comic series, websites, video games, and films all dedicated to this spectacular cultural phenomenon. Though gambling has never been prominent in Star Wars, some of the franchise’s main characters were notorious gamblers.
Like Han Solo – the dude won a spaceship playing Sabacc, another kind of card game represented in Star Wars movies. Or take Lando Calrissian – he’s been a huge cheater since we’ve known him and always seemed to get away with his tricks. Or Chewbacca – known for his inability to take a loss at his favorite game. The entire casino planet has been featured in the Last Jedi, though it might not have been the best part of the movie. And you could actually go to the casino in the Knights of the Old Republic games. So, you cannot really say gambling is not a part of the Star Wars universe – it is featured in many films and other properties related to this franchise.