
The House Always Wins!
This is the series of quests Mr House gives you in Act 2 of Fallout New Vegas. So what does “the house always wins” actually mean? It’s a phrase that is often used around gambling, especially gambling in casinos. So thematically, it fits well with a game set in Vegas. It means that no matter how much you might win in a casino, the ‘house’ will still make more money than they lose.
It’s true. Owning a casino is extremely lucrative, people spend hours feeding money into slot machines, buying chips and losing at roulette. Casinos employ a number of techniques to keep you playing as well. I’ve been to Vegas and I noticed that you couldn’t really see windows or doors from the casino floor. There were no clocks either. This means you don’t notice the passage of time.
They also bring you free drinks, as long as you keep playing and tip the waitstaff. Every win you get, no matter how small, gives you a hit of dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that is like a reward, so it compels you to keep playing to win more. It’s no wonder that gambling addiction is a thing that can ruin someone’s life.
What About Mr House?
Robert Edwin House was born on the 25th of June 2020, making him 261 years old in New Vegas. He was orphaned at the age of 2 when his parents were killed in a freak accident. His half-brother Anthony cheated him out of his inheritance. He went on to study at CIT (Fallout’s version of MIT) and founded RobCo in 2042, to astounding success. By 2050, he was worth $30 billion.
Mr House is of the old world. Before the bombs, he was an extremely successful businessman and engineer. His technology was used all over, and really stands the test of time. Think about how many computer terminals and Pip-Boys are still functional, over 200 years after the bombs fell.
Mr House is from Vegas, his brother ran a tool factory in the area. Anthony House stole the inheritance from Robert, and became extremely paranoid. He clearly loves the city and the profitability of having casinos, even in the post war world. He needs this profit to realise his dreams for the future of humanity.
House’s Plan To Win
If you work with House, you will eventually learn about his intentions and his long term plans for Vegas. His plan is to eventually have people going into space and colonising other worlds. He wants to set up a tech autocracy with him at the head, as a chief executive. House does not intend to control every aspect of peoples lives nor be worshipped as a god.
“The city’s economy is a blast furnace in which can be forged the steel of a new rail line, running straight to a new horizon.”
Robert house, 2281
He thinks the NCR is doomed to fail because it is a democracy that is emulating the old world. That is a good point, as clearly the pre-War world failed, or else the nuclear apocalypse wouldn’t have happened. He does believe himself immune to corruption, which is an interesting take.
“If you want to see the fate of democracies, look out the windows.”
If you ask a lot of questions, you do learn quite a bit about House. He is shrewd and strategic. He understands politics, he understands people and he understands money. All of this on top of his tech abilities.
RobCo Technology
It’s clear that Mr House is a genius when it comes to technology. There is a huge list of products made by RobCo that you can find all over the Wasteland. I’ll link to the list here, but it includes the Pip-Boy, the Protectron robot, computer terminals and Liberty Prime. A portrait can be found in Camp Golf, of House standing in front of Liberty Prime, or a prototype.

He has also created a life support system that allows him to control his network. This has kept him alive since the bombs fell. He doesn’t have access to the secret bunker at the Fort, nor Hoover Dam. This is because he needs the Platinum Chip the Courier was supposed to deliver. The chip was meant to reach him in the afternoon of the 23rd of October, 2077… So it didn’t make it since the bombs fell that same morning.
House had predicted the nuclear war would happen, and he had made preparations to protect Vegas from the nukes. The chip contained the upgrade for the operating system, needed to prevent all the nuclear bombs from hitting the city.
Post-War
House still managed to protect Vegas from most of the bombs. But this put a massive strain on the system without the OS upgrade. He had to struggle with reduced power and system inefficiencies, even spending a long time in a coma. Yet, he got through it and woke up in 2138. He waited and planned, holding on until the right moment to reveal himself.
This happened in 2274, when his Securitrons rolled out of the Lucky 38, after the NCR finding Hoover Dam. House recruited three tribes living in Vegas and they became the Three Families, rebuilding and running casinos on the Strip. He signed a treaty with the NCR, granting them McCarran Airport and protecting the Strip.
At one point, House offered a gamble to the dwellers living in Vault 21, the Vault directly under the Strip. The experiment there was to resolve all issues and conflicts with gambling or games of chance. House won the gamble and took ownership of Vault 21, stripping it of technology. He intended to fill the vault with cement. Sarah Weintraub convinced House to leave the top section of the Vault and allow her to run it as a hotel.
All the while, House was still searching for the Platinum Chip. Eventually it was found in Sunnyvale, and the Mojave Express was contracted to deliver the chip to the Lucky 38. Five other couriers had packages of related items, like a pair of fuzzy dice. This was to mask the importance of the Platinum Chip.
Ain’t That A Kick in The Head
Once again, the chip was delayed. This time it was the leader of the Chairmen, one of the three families, Benny. Benny found out about the chip, and used a modified Securitron to get data from the system. So caught the Courier, shooting them in the head and burying them in a shallow grave in Goodsprings.
House found out from Victor, a Securitron House planted as a spy and was angry that Benny had betrayed him. Yet he waited, and watched to see if the Courier would take revenge and get the chip back. He is keen to work with you if you succeed.
If you don’t want to work with House, then you will end up killing Mr House or disabling him. NCR and the Legion want House out of the picture and disconnected from his network. Yes Man needs to be installed on the network, so again you must kill or disconnect House.
If you kill him, you will receive a note titled ‘A tragedy has befallen all mankind’, which is House’s obituary. He has written it himself. It’s not finished, because he doesn’t think he’ll need it any time soon. It’s a long one, and very arrogant, even stating that he is mankind’s only hope of long-term survival.
Thanks for reading. Next time we’ll dig into Mr House’s plans for some of the smaller factions and what he makes you do. Hopefully you’ll join me for that. I’ve got coverage of the Mr House Act 2 and 3 on YouTube, so you can find that here.
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