The sad thing is that I kind of like this event. It’s not because of the activity of the event; that part is the most boring thing to watch because you’re literally just clicking on terminals. And it can’t be because of the cost; a player can literally go through millions of credits in just a few hours.
It’s because of the prizes. They really are some of the coolest things that you can get without having to touch the cash shop in any way.
I was watching Sechari from the Passionately Casual Podcast hang out with his Twitch chatroom as he was playing through the Nightlife event when I realized that it’s possible that not many people know how to maximize their credits for this event. I’m going to give you the same advice I gave Sechari, in three easy steps.
Buy Smuggler’s chips
Although there are vendors and slot machines on the barges next to the Promenade on Nar Shaddaa, the best place to get tokens and to play the slots most efficiently is at Club Vertica if you’re a Republic player or the Star Cluster if you’re an Imperial player. There you will find a droid in a tuxedo who will sell you Kingpin Casino chips or Smuggler’s Casino chips.
This seems very basic, right? You have to buy gambling chip in order to win at gambling. This is true, but if you buy the Kingpin chips thinking that it will fast-track you to getting the ultimate prizes you’d be wrong. Thanks to the mining data we have known since the first Nightlife event, it could cost you about six times more credits to win the big prizes if you buy the Kingpin chips. I will get into the specifics of the odds in just a bit, but for now, know that it’s not recommended to buy Kingpin chips ever.
Instead, buy Smuggler’s chips. I would recommend getting about 100 of them at a time. The odds aren’t better by getting a hundred chips at a time, but it is easier to track how much you’re actually spending.
Run four Smuggler Machines at once
Once you have your chips, you are ready to start gambling. This is where I recommend starting a movie on Netflix or having something else going on in the background like maybe voice chat for your guild. This is the tedious part, the most grindy of grinds.
Position yourself between four slot machines. I recommend positioning your camera so that you can see the full front of two of the machines and the back of the other two. Then I would start by standing immediately to the right or left of the back half of the front machine. This should allow you to click on one of the forward-facing machines and one of the rear-facing machines at the same time. To click the other two machines, all you have to do is take one step to the side.
It takes 1.5 seconds from the time you click the first machine until you can click the next one. And there are 5 seconds between times when you can click the same machine again. So aligning yourself between four machines is almost perfect timing. You will be back to the first machine just about the time that you can click it again.
Continue running four machines until you have exhausted your Smuggler’s chip supply to about 15. At this point, you should have about 15 Kingpin chips and hopefully a Golden Certificate or two.
Maximize Kingpin Tokens
The most important thing to remember about Kingpin Tokens is to never use one without a Smuggler’s Luck buff. You earn the Smuggler’s Luck buff from the Smuggler’s slot machines. “Feeling Lucky” will appear in the middle of your screen, and an image of a blue-glowing Hutt will appear on your buff bar. The Smuggler’s Luck buff will last for two minutes or until you have won a Golden Certificate or one of the other prizes from the Kingpin slot machines.
The timing on the Kingpin slot machines is the same as the Smuggler’s slot machines, but I don’t recommend running more than two at a time. Here’s why: If you actually win a prize from one of the Kingpin machines, you will not know what it is until the five seconds are up. Your character will animate and glow with credits symbols around them or the Kingpin machine will shoot fireworks depending on what you win. However, you will lose your Smuggler’s Luck buff immediately after you’ve clicked on the machine. If you are clicking three machines at a time, you are more likely to click on a machine after the buff is gone than if you are only clicking on two or even one at a time.
Remember those 15 chips I told you to keep? Those chips are for running back to the Smuggler’s slot machines to gain your Smuggler’s Luck buff again. Keep running this cycle until you’ve exhausted all of your Kingpin chips. Then start at step one again. Rinse and repeat until you have all the prizes you want or have dumped all the credits you’re willing into this giant credit sink.
Never tell me the odds
Han Solo will not like this next part because I’m going to tell you the odds of winning each prize. There are seven possible outcomes for Smuggler’s slot machines: Free play, lose, free play and buff, double chips, Kingpin chip, Golden Certificate, and the machine explodes.
| Outcome | Description | Chance |
| Free play | You win your Smuggler’s chip back, and you can play it again. | 50% |
| Lose | You lose your Smuggler’s chip. Sorry, that’s 2k down the drain. | 29.68% |
| Free play and buff | You win you Smuggler’s chip back and you earn the Smuggler’s Luck buff. | 10% |
| Double chips | Congratualtions, you get two chips back instead of one. | 5% |
| Kingpin chip | You’ve lost your Smuggler’s chip, but you’ve gained a Kingpin chip. | 5% |
| Jackpot | The only jackpot for a Smuggler’s slot machine is the Golden Certificate. | 0.3% |
| Machine explodes | At first you hear a sizzle, then you are knocked down. The slot machine explodes and becomes unusable for about two minutes. But you earn the hidden achievement. | 0.02% |
The Kingpin machines have a different percentage based on if you have the Smuggler’s Luck buff or not. I don’t recommend playing the Kingpin machines unless you have the buff, but I will show you the difference just so you can see why I recommend only playing this machine with the buff. The six outcomes for the Kingpin machine are free play, lose, Golden Certificate, Vectron Wraith, Gamorrean Guard, or the machine explodes.
| Outcome | Description | Chance | Chance with buff |
| Free play | You win your Kingpin chip back, and you can play again. | Â 50% | 64.81% |
| Lose | Sorry, you just lost at the Smuggler’s slots and the Kingpin’s slot in one press of a button. | Â 45.86% | 29.59% |
| Golden Certificate | Golden Certificates can be used to purchase some of the cool prizes from the vendors. | 4% | 5.18% |
| Vectron Wraith | This mount is interested, but I kind of liked the mount from the previous event better. But I can still get those from Golden Certificates. | 0.23% | Â 0.298% |
| Gamorrean Guard | This is the ultimate prize this time around. You can hire your own Gamorrean Guard companion and dress him how you like. | 0.07% | 0.09% |
| Machine explodes | Â At first you hear a sizzle, then you are knocked down. The slot machine explodes and becomes unusable for about two minutes. But you earn the hidden achievement. | 0.02% | 0.026% |
Keep in mind that these chances reset after each time you click on the machine. That means that your chances do not increase the more that you click on a machine. However, Dulfy calculates the average of winning the Vectron at 1,418,440 credits and the Gamorrean Guard at 4,694,836 credits. It took me about 6 million credits to get the Gamorean. And if you’re interested in seeing the other prizes, step over to the two pages on Dulfy and TOR-Decorating’s search page. Good luck!
Every other week, Larry Everett jumps into his T-16 back home, rides through the hypergates of BioWare‘s Star Wars: The Old Republic, and posts his adventures in the Hyperspace Beacon. Drop him a holocom on Twitter @Shaddoe or send him a transmission at larry@massivelyop.com. Now strap yourself in, kid — we gotta make the jump to hyperspace!
