Hi,

This is the rules for gambling in Xanathar's Guide To Everything:

Resources. This activity requires one workweek of effort plus a stake of at least 10 gp, to a maximum of 1,000 gp or more, as you see fit.

Resolution. The character must make a series of checks, with a DC determined at random based on the quality of the competition that the character runs into. Part of the risk of gambling is that one never knows who might end up sitting across the table.

The character makes three checks: Wisdom (Insight), Charisma (Deception), and Charisma (Intimidation). If the character has proficiency with an appropriate gaming set, that tool proficiency can replace the relevant skill in any of the checks. The DC for each of the checks is 5 + 2d10; generate a separate DC for each one. Consult the Gambling Results table to see how the character did.

Gambling Results

Result	Value
0 successes	Lose all the money you bet, and accrue a debt equal to that amount.
1 success	Lose half the money you bet.
2 successes	Gain the amount you bet plus half again more.
3 successes	Gain double the amount you bet.

We are currently having a disagreement in our campaign on how to resolve the stake.

Is the stake removed from your amount of gold prior to gambling or is the stake only potentially lost, based on the number of successes, after the gambling is completed.

Any help on this would be appreciated. Thanks.

Well, I'm no genius, but at a casino, you exchange cash for chips, right? At that point, the cash is no longer in your irl inventory, until you take the chips and cash them in. 

Now, I reckon a fantasy casino/tavern/what-have-you wouldn't use chips, but the principle is still the same. The money is in the hands of the house or the pot or in the machine or whatever as soon as you place the bet, and then later you might get some of it back, or get it all and then some.

 So if I were at that table I'd be advocating for the gold leaving the inventory when the stake is placed.

It's worded pretty odd but the way I'm reading it like this.

• If you bet 1000g, you lose access to it until the resolution:
  • 0 successes - Nothing changes.  You're out the 1000g.  The "accrue a dept equal to that amount" part doesn't make sense.  You're not losing more money than you're betting.
  • 1 success - You now have 500g.
  • 2 successes - You now have 1500g.
  • 3 Successes - You now have 2000g.

This makes the most sense.  If you're gambling in the real world you put the money on the table and the bet is final until the resolution.

You could also mimic real world gambling.

But technically when you convert your money to chips you are given an equivalent amount of chips that you could turn back into real money.

If you were to sit down at a gambling table not in a tavern setting I imagine you would have your gold that you brought with you as your "stake".

You would either lose this or gain more as you play but technically the "stake" is not an entry fee to playing but the money you are actually playing with.

You are wrong, your interpretation of "stake" disagrees with how the word is defined in gambling and business.  The "stake" is what's actually in the game or venture AT RISK.  Stakeholders, in gambling and business are people who have "money in".  It doesn't refer to their potential to put more money in, that's just standing on the sidelines with no stake.  The rules outlined summarize a process of gambling and not individual bets for the most part (because narrating games of chance can get a bit drawn out).  The stake is what you put into the game.  The resolution tells you what happens to that stake.  Don't want to lose it?  Don't gamble.  A stake is your proverbial "peace of the action."  Now pay up the NPCs who hustled you before legs start getting broken (the rules for grappling and beating the PC down are more straightforward under "combat").  If you want to play incremental bets and resolve things hand by hand or race by race, that's not what the rules are set out to do.  It describes what happens to the total sum the PC put at risk in the PC's day at the races or the card table or unsanctioned owl bear fight.    

Quote from FuriousFury >>

But technically when you convert your money to chips you are given an equivalent amount of chips that you could turn back into real money.

 

If you were to sit down at a gambling table not in a tavern setting I imagine you would have your gold that you brought with you as your "stake".

You would either lose this or gain more as you play but technically the "stake" is not an entry fee to playing but the money you are actually playing with.

 Exchanging your money into chips isn't gambling.  Gambling comes after that.

If it reads the way you have said then this would be the result if I wagered 100 gp

0 successes - Lose 200 gp

1 success - Lose 50 gp

2 successes - Win 50 gp

3 successes - Win 100 gp

What would be the point of gambling? The odds favor losing.

I believe they have used the wrong term in the success table. They have said bet when they meant staked.

I think the issue here is thinking that bet money and staked money are the same thing.

When you make a bet you agree to a set of terms with a set outcome, such as a certain team winning, the bet is either worth money or worth nothing. But once the bet is placed it has no financial value until the outcome of the, in the case, sporting event has happened.

Staked money is an investment, in this case an investment in gambling for the week. You take this money to the casino and convert it into chips, technically at any point you can walk away from a table and cash out your chips because the chips have a set cash value. Based on how you bet during the week you can either lose your staked money or gain more money on top of it.

This is the key difference.

The Xanathar's rules don't mention a separate bet.  Perhaps this is just sloppy wording, but it strikes me that unless they say "You must have X amount as a Stake, and then make a bet of Y amount" the intent is that the Stake and the Bet are the same thing.  Stake your Bets ladies and gentlemen!

The rules of gambling *always* favor the house.  Coming out ahead is somewhat rare.

What are you trying to win here?  The rules are pretty clear.  The player opting to spend downtime gambling needs money and one week.  The checks in the system aren't individual bets.  The checks result in the fate of the gambling endeavor, the money you put in plus the week = results of the check.  There's no getting out while you're ahead or anything like that since the week calculates the results of the work of downtime, which could be a loss.  Bet and stake are clearly synonymous to anyone outside someone trying to rule wrestle their way out of a loss.

The gambling could be a series of card tables, or one big night, or time at a casino or a track. That's all stuff for the DM and you to generate, but the mechanics are simple, rather than doing a trade or training, the PC opts to gamble for down time, and the table reflects the results of 1 week + money the PC declared for gambling.   

And as said, the odds of :"winning" gambling are stacked against you, unless you've picked up expertise in the relevant skills.

Quote from FuriousFury >>

If it reads the way you have said then this would be the result if I wagered 100 gp

0 successes - Lose 200 gp

1 success - Lose 50 gp

2 successes - Win 50 gp

3 successes - Win 100 gp

What would be the point of gambling? The odds favor losing.

I believe they have used the wrong term in the success table. They have said bet when they meant staked.

 In the real world the odds favour losing, otherwise the bookies would go out of business, yet lots of people gamble. Having said that there might not be a bookie. A bunch of friends meeting together to play poker end up with exactly the same money between them as when they started so the average result is to break even.

Having said that the odds favour losing if your success rate is 50% get it up above 54% and you can make a profit in the long term.

It is oddly worded and I think RAI is that you do not lose more than your stake but RAW I think this is correct.

The way I read this, to be simple on a bet of 100 gp:

0: Lose 100 gp out of your inventory, plus another 100 gp of debt (You are at -200 gp)

1: Lose 50 gp out of your inventory (you started betting with 100 gp, and walked away with 50 -- this is called "losing 50 gp while gambling" -- you are at -50 gp)

2: Gain 150 gp into your inventory over what you started with in the inventory (you are at +150)

3: Gain 200 gp into your inventory (you are at +200).

My first thought looking at this is... where is "break even?"

The odds are stacked against you isn't a good reason to have the winnings be so much lower then the amount you can lose.

The stacked odds are in the 2d10+5 (avg 16) DC check that you have to pass to get a success.

I agree with BioWizard on how the successes would pay out.

So my point, which I did not make very clearly, is that I don't know what the intent is in the rules but... in gambling lingo, if you say "I lost half of what I bet," the clear meaning is you bet $100 and lost $50, meaning you walked away from the table with $50 total. Similarly, if you say "I won the amount I bet," it means that you bet $100, and walked away from the table with $200 (winning $100, the amount you bet). Getting back what you bet is not winning -- it is breaking even. So when they say, "Gain the amount you bet plus half again more," the normal meaning in gambling is that you won $150 (the amount $100, plus half more, $50 = $150). This means you walked away from the table $150 ahead... not that you won back the original wager and then made $50. If that were the case it would say "gain half of what you bet" -- the gain is the winnings. The original bet is not the winnings -- it's the original bet.

I would totally not play that game. You have a chance to owe the house more money than you brought in, not just losing what you have.

I think the gambling entry should read as follows to avoid confusion

Resources. This activity requires one workweek of effort plus a stake of at least 10 gp, to a maximum of 1,000 gp or more, as you see fit. This stake is not removed from the players total gold but reserved for the results of gambling.

Gambling Results

Quote from Wysperra >>

I would totally not play that game. You have a chance to owe the house more money than you brought in, not just losing what you have.

Yet it's analogous to RL and historic gambling.  "Gambling debts" are a thing in less regulated economies.  The psychology of the bad gambler believes they just need one more hand or roll or race or whatever for their ship to come in, so the house or an independent loanshark opens a line of credit.  It actually does happen.

Quote from BioWizard >>

The way I read this, to be simple on a bet of 100 gp:

0: Lose 100 gp out of your inventory, plus another 100 gp of debt (You are at -200 gp)

1: Lose 50 gp out of your inventory (you started betting with 100 gp, and walked away with 50 -- this is called "losing 50 gp while gambling" -- you are at -50 gp)

2: Gain 150 gp into your inventory over what you started with in the inventory (you are at +150)

3: Gain 200 gp into your inventory (you are at +200).

My first thought looking at this is... where is "break even?"

You're right, there should be a result where it all washes and you're neither ahead or behind.  Reviewing the downtime rules, it looks like the results table are more bound to symmetry and consistency the Xanthar's design process wanted for downtime activities.  Pit fighting and crime also have a. three check system with at least the former having results predicated on the number of successes.  I think either system as well as the crime system could be opened up to more sophisticated forms of payouts and losses (for example, losing pit fighter could owe coin to backers who staked them entry into the fight).  I think at the end of the day thought, these are there for simplicity's sake and not to become a focus of the game ... and maybe discourage turning downtime into rainmaker and windfall quests and steer the players back into actually playing the game:  if players want something really interesting to happen during gaming or PitFighting or crime, it should be played as part of the adventuring, not a background task.    I mean would you want your characters greatest accomplishment be the result of background task?

I understand why they set it up the way they did but the gambling table doesn't work for me in an in-character sense. There should be a "break even" category. And I'm not sure "going into debt" makes sense, as one could easily put up 100 gp with a savings of 1,000 gp, and if you lost another 100, you'd just have 800 total, not be 100 in debt.

I think if one of my players wanted to do some down-time gambling I'd make up something a lot more interesting and realistic than that table.