The House Always Wins is an eight-part main quest in Fallout: New Vegas.
Synopsis
Mr. House has big plans for his Strip and he needs a proper army to enforce them. To this end, he wants the Platinum Chip to upgrade his securitrons on the Strip. Mr. House tasks the Courier to retrieve the Platinum Chip from Benny, and use it at the Fort to upgrade the securitrons, then bring it back to the Lucky 38 so that Mr. House can upgrade them, although it is possible to do it the other way around.
Quick walkthrough
| Main Quest: The House Always Wins I | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Speak to Swank at the reception desk when first entering The Tops Casino. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Present a combination of 3 Speech checks/pieces of evidence and Swank will distract Benny to let you search his room for evidence. | Confront Benny on the Casino floor. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Search his room for evidence. | Kill Benny. | Use the Black Widow perk to spend the night alone with him. | Go to the presidential suite with or without Benny. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Talk to Yes Man and learn about the Platinum Chip. | Kill Benny in his sleep or leave him alone. | Survive the ambush. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Take the Platinum Chip after killing Benny. If he escaped, find him at the Fort. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Return to Mr. House and watch his demonstration of the Securitron Mk II OS. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Reward: 1000 caps (1250 with a Barter skill of 50), Lucky 38 presidential suite, 600 XP, Achievement / Trophy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leads to: The House Always Wins II | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough
The Courier must retrieve the Platinum Chip from Benny and bring it back to Mr. House so he can upgrade his robotic army. This quest will complete upon delivery of the chip, but Part Two may need to be completed first depending on the player character's actions. Note that the following options can be done without actually speaking to Mr. House, since it ties in with Ring-a-Ding-Ding!
Option: Speak to Swank
One way to deal with Benny is by telling his right-hand man, Swank (located at the front desk), about Benny's planned rebellion. Swank is initially suspicious of the Courier's accusations, but the player character can convince him using one of two ways:
- Passing 3 Speech checks (15, 30, and 45 respectively)
- Presenting Swank with discarded cigarette butts (Benny's preferred brand) left by the Courier's grave in Goodsprings, the note left with Manny Vargas in Novac by Benny's bodyguards (completing the quest he offers, pickpocketing the note, or reading his terminal will allow the player character to obtain it), and Benny's lighter (obtained from the remaining Great Khans at Boulder City).
Once Swank is convinced that the Courier may be right, he will return one's weapons and tell the Courier to go up to Benny's suite to search for additional evidence. Once obtained and shown to Swank, he will help the player character eliminate Benny. After talking to Swank and receiving One's weapons back, killing Benny will reap a positive Karma bonus and no retaliation from the remaining gamblers and bodyguards in Vegas. Doing so also completes the quest Ring-a-Ding-Ding!
Option: Speak to Benny
An alternative option instead of speaking with Swank is to talk straight to Benny, who is waiting near the Presidential Suite with his personal guard. He will offer the Courier a key to the room after taking the peaceful speech route. Benny will prefer to meet the Courier with his bodyguards, but one can convince him through a 60 Speech check to leave them outside. Once the player character and Benny are in the Presidential Suite, one can:
- Kill him and take the chip. As long as they keep the fighting inside of the suite, no one outside will notice or care.
- Agree to partner up and help him take over New Vegas.
- Say one will consider his partnership offer.
If the Courier agrees to talk in private and head to the Presidential Suite by yourself, Benny will let you know over the intercom that he has duped the player character. He sends up 4 guards to attack the Courier, but with a Speech check of 35 and 50 one can convince him that they will stop chasing him. In either case, Benny will run off to the Fort and will be captured by Caesar's Legion.
Option: Seduce Benny
With the Black Widow perk, a female Courier can seduce Benny and get into his suite without any trouble. One can choose to attack him as soon as one gets into his suite, or they can have sex with him and then kill him in his sleep. Either way, the quest proceeds as above. the Courier can also have sex with him and then just fall asleep, in which case Benny will be gone in the morning and will have left a note. Benny will then be captured by Caesar's Legion, forcing the player character to go to the Fort to retrieve the Platinum Chip.
Completion
Upon killing or rescuing Benny and having obtained the chip, one can return to Mr. House and watch his Securitron demonstration in the basement. One will never come back to this location, so take what little loot is in the room. Now the Courier has finally fulfilled their contract!
If the Courier failed to kill Benny, then they must complete Part Two, which will complete this quest at the same time.
Quest stages
Part I
Notes
- The first time one enters the Lucky 38, any companions must wait outside. If the player character enters without telling them to wait, the game will do it for them, and one must manually prompt them to follow them again upon exiting.
- There is an unused part called "The House Always Wins: Lockdown".
- If the Courier refuses to hand over the Platinum Chip, the securitrons in the Penthouse will become hostile. This will result in the failure of the quest.
- If the player character goes to Fortification Hill after retrieving the Platinum Chip, it will be confiscated by Caesar, and Mr. House will not talk to the player character. In order to continue, one must complete Caesar's demands.
Bugs
Sometimes when you retrieve the Platinum Chip from Benny and are approached by the Legion emissary, you will be unable to tell your companions to return to the Lucky 38, nor will you be able to get Arcade Gannon to follow you after recruiting him for the first time.
Message indicating quest failed, despite not having started, while deep within Vault 11. May have been related to activating Lucky 38 override in H&H Hardware or at Camp Golf earlier in-game while exploring. Possibly related to Still in the Dark Questline or be entirely related to Vault 11. Confirmed on PC, Xbox, and PS3. Update: The 8 turrets down in the bottom level of Vault 11 are of the Lucky 38 Faction. Killing them may be why you are failing this quest. Simply let your companions take out the turrets and you should be fine.
- If you want to reset failed (grayed out) quest do the following: Open console and type setally 001267ab 0001b2a4 resetquest 00147885* setstage 00147885 5* setobjectivedisplayed 00147885 5 1* prid 001264c5 setdestroyed 0.
- Note: Depending on at which part the long quest "The House Always Wins" failed, you have to enter different resetquest, setstage and setobjectivedisplay QuestIDs and StageIndexs. For example, to reset "The House Always Wins, II" where Mr. House orders you to enter the Secret Bunker at Fortification Hill, you would have to enter resetquest 00147886 setstage 00147886 30 setobjectivedisplayed 00147886 30 1. See Fallout: New Vegas quest IDs for a complete list of Quest IDs & StageIndexs and SetStage Info at TES: Construction Set Wiki for further details on the setstage command.
- If you kill Benny, take the chip, and/or speak with Yes-Man before meeting with House (and thus prior to starting The House Always Wins, I), once you bring the chip to House, two bugs may occur:
- First, you may be able to use Barter to increase the payment to 1,250, but House will still only give you 1,000.
- Second, House will teleport you to the basement to observe the upgrade, but once there, the quest freezes. You can walk to the waypoint marker on the observation platform but the quest will not update and since you can't interact with the elevator, you'll be trapped. This may also happen for another unknown reason.
- Sometimes when the player is watching the securitron demonstration, one of the newly upgraded securitrons might accidentally kill itself during the missile demonstration from the blast back. This will also cause The House Always Wins quest to fail and will leave the player trapped on the basement floor.
