The Tops

The Tops is one of the casinos on the New Vegas Strip in 2281 controlled by the Chairmen, one of the three tribes that were allowed into New Vegas after the war at Mr House's invitation.

Background
The Tops offers a classic Vegas experience, with cool, hip, fun, and macho posturing to entice those with a sense of style. This is a place for manly men with a dame on each arm; here to see the Rad Pack as they perform their routine “The Four Taps” over at the Ace Theater. Choose a fine wine, order the Brahmin steak rare, and have a good time, baby! The place is run by The Chairmen, who talk tough, but most of them don’t take things too seriously; they’re just too cool and laid back to let anything get to them (with the exception of Benny).

Layout
The Tops is a casino right out of Vegas's rat-pack era. Frank Sinatra's music plays softly in the background to the clinks of slot machines. Security is tight, with Chairmen out front to collect patrons' weapons before they step inside. The weapons will be automatically returned to your inventory when you leave, and you have the option to hide holdout weapons if you can pass the required Sneak check.

There are six main areas with loading screens between them: the casino, restaurant, Aces theater, Presidential suite, 13th floor, and the courtyard.

Lobby and casino
There's a circular desk in the lobby where the player can usually find Swank. Beyond it is the casino proper, with a main hall to the right as one enters and a smaller section just behind the main staircase. Beyond the stairs and the smaller casino section is the elevator bank, which has only a single working elevator to the 13th floor, and a door to the courtyard. In the large hall is the entrance to the restaurant and an express elevator to the Presidential suite, which requires a key.

On the second level, just up the main staircase on the left, is a cashier where the player can change chips for cash and vice-versa. Right next to the cashier is the entrance to the Aces theater.

Restaurant
A bartender sells an assortment of drinks. There's a kitchen behind an average locked door which has some food and alcohol, including 5 Nuka-Cola Quartz. A door leads to the courtyard from here.

The Aces theater
Players can buy a drink or watch one of the shows and acts that are going on. Here you can find Tommy Torini, who gives you the side quest Talent Pool.

Presidential suite
This is only accessible with a key obtained from Benny.



Courtyard
The courtyard is a small area behind the Casino. It has a pool, which is surrounded by palm trees and a brick wall. There are several gamblers milling around along with a few Chairmen.

13th floor
The 13th floor contains a variety of nondescript rooms with average locks, Benny's suite, and the High Roller's suite. There are at least five average locked doors on this floor.

The High Roller's suite is a slightly larger room than the rest, and contains some minor loot. Entering requires a key, which can be obtained by winning enough chips in the casino (see the "gambling" section). This is not a good place to use as character housing, as the guards on the floor will enter the suite once the door is unlocked and will take any consumables that are in the room.

Benny's suite is in the center of the hallway, through the only double doors. Benny's suite door has an average lock, which may be picked or opened using a key obtained from Benny or one of his henchmen. The room itself has minor loot; the big attraction is a rough hole in the wall that connects to Benny's secret workshop, where the player can find Yes Man and begin the Wild Card quest.

At the end of the main hallway, the very last door is locked with a special key and cannot be picked open. It is unknown whether or not there is a key in the game that unlocks it.

The sub-basement
Beyond Benny's workshop is a hallway with an elevator, used by Benny as an emergency escape route. The elevator requires a key to access, but there is no key that opens it in the game.

However, a script unlocks the elevator when Benny begins to flee The Tops (such as if the player attacks him in the lobby), and a different script locks it again if he succeeds in reaching it (verified with GECK). The behavior of this script can be exploited to gain access to the sub-basement by causing Benny to flee, and killing him before he can reach the sub-basement elevator. This is most easily accomplished during Ring-a-Ding-Ding! by convincing Benny to meet you in the Presidential suite, telling him that you forgive him, and then killing him as he tries to leave. Any other trigger for him to flee will work, however if he makes it to the 13th floor elevator he may outrun the player. Once Benny is dead, the sub-basement elevator will then be unlocked, with Benny unable to reach it to trigger the re-locking portion of the script, allowing you to go down and explore. Tricking the script in this way is the only way to gain access to the sub-basement on a console; on the PC version players can simply use the "Unlock" console command to unlock the door.

The sub-basement itself is a small room with a breached wall leading into a sealed-off section of Vault 21. The section is presumably part of the reactor maintenance section for the vault. It does however contain some minor loot in lockers, and several explosives crates that Benny must have used in excavating the section.

If you explore the unfinished vault, you will find several inaccessible doors, but there is one at the end of a corridor, that once open with the console command "Unlock" will lead to a void. Jumping inside this void you will be teletransported to the real vault 21. Then you can simply turn around and leave to New Vegas or explore the vault.

Gambling

 * Games
 * The Tops offers Blackjack, Roulette, and Slots.
 * The Tops pays 3:2 on blackjack, and the dealer must stand on all 17's.

As the player earns chips, the floor manager will offer increasingly valuable gifts, culminating in a complimentary suite.
 * Rewards and ban
 * 2,500+ chips = Vodka
 * 5,000+ chips = Brahmin steak and wine
 * 7,500+ chips = High Roller's suite key

After the player earns 10,000+ chips, they will be banned from playing games in The Tops. They can still use its other functions, such as the restaurant, the theater and cashing out their chips, but they cannot win any more money in the Tops; the ban is permanent.

Music
The piped-in music consists of the following tracks:
 * "Ain't That A Kick In The Head"
 * "Blue Moon"
 * "Hallo Mister X"
 * "Jingle, Jangle, Jingle"
 * "Manhattan"
 * "Something's Gotta Give"
 * "Slow Bounce"
 * "Why Don't You Do Right?"

For music used in the show performances, see The Aces.

Appearances
The Tops only appears in Fallout: New Vegas.

Behind the scenes

 * In the Aces theater, there are 3 entertainers called "The RAD Pack". This is a reference to the famous Vegas group of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, and Dean Martin. This quintet was called "The Rat Pack" during its years of fame in the early 1960s.
 * The Tops is loosely based on "The Sands Hotel and Casino", which "The Rat Pack" used to mainly perform at during their time together, it may also be based on the Flamingo hotel and casino, also located in Las Vegas, Nevada.
 * Benny's suite is on the thirteenth floor. This floor number is considered unlucky, and many hotels and apartment buildings deliberately do not assign a floor this number.

Behind the scenes
It is loosely based on The Sands Casino and Imperial Palace, minus the circular portion of the hotel, which was later imploded to make land available for the building of The Venetian and Palazzo Hotel.

Bugs

 * The locked (average) door in the restaurant can become bugged, and no lock is shown. The lockpick mini game can still be played, however you will not be able to see the lock nor the bobby pin.
 * The player sometimes doesn't get their stashed weapons back when exiting.
 * If the player dismisses companions while inside The Tops and tells them to return to the Lucky 38, they may walk toward the front doors but never exit. Instead, they remain waiting in The Tops lobby. To fix get the companion to re-join you, exit The Tops, then dismiss them again once you are both outside of the casino. They will then walk to the Lucky 38.
 * When exchanging chips into caps, the messages "added X caps" and "removed X chips" are displayed, but no chips are removed and no caps are added. To fix exchange chips into Legion/NCR money, then exchange Legion/NCR money into caps at another casino.
 * Sometimes one of the Chairmen will have no head, but his mouth, eyes, and hair will be floating above his suit.
 * On the 13th floor, If you drag a corpse into the corridor behind Yes Man's room it will become invisible.
 * Taking the elevator to the 13th floor sometimes causes the screen to go black after loading.
 * Sometimes when entering The Tops there will be a glitch where almost every door in The Tops has an average lock on it and some random places in the wasteland will too (e.g. ovens, random containers etc.) Also, they will sometimes lock again as soon as you unlock them.