In each act, one NPC in town will allow you to Gamble. Once you have selected Gamble you will see an inventory of items. These items will not be identified, and they will be offered at different prices. Select an item of a type you want to buy. Buy it. The item will then be automatically identified and you will see the item's statistics. Items generated for the gamble stock are -5 through +4 levels of your character's level with a minimum item level of 5. Note, this does not apply to level requirements often seen on items also known as required level. This applies only to the item level. This item level is never seen by the player in game and is used primarily in formulae that choose what affixes an item can get. Ancient armor has a quality level of 40, which means you can see it in the gambling screen at level 35. You will see it more often in the gambling screen when you are level 44 because at this point, you will always meet the required level. Look at the bottom of this page for a list of base items and their proper quality levels. Certain items have a high quality level associated to them, when this occurs it is possible to attain higher level affixes. An example of this is the Diadem with a quality level of 85. In this case, you can receive higher level affixes even if you are at a low character level.

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The items you receive will be from most common, to most rare: Magic Items, Rare, Sets, Uniques. Set and Unique Items are extremely rare. The chance for Uniques is 1 in 2,000 (0.05%) and 1 in 1,000 (0.10%) for Sets. The chance for Rares is 1 in 10 (10%). Magic Items are 1/~1.1 (89.85%).

The level of quality of the items will be from most common to, most rare: Normal, Exceptional, Elite. The chance for the other types of items is:

Exceptional:

pV = max{0%, (ilvl − qlvlV) * 0.9% + 1%}

Elite:

pE = max{0%, (ilvl − qlvlE) * 0.33% + 1%}

pE/pV = probability
ilvl = clvl (-5 to +4)
qlvl = quality-lvl of base item to be generated (i.e. 33 for Demonhide gloves)

• You will mostly get Magic items which may or may not be worth anything to you (hence Gambling).
• You can Gamble Set or Unique Items and have the chance to Gamble Exceptional and Elite items as well. Gambling Items appear as Normal Items and can only be revealed as Exceptional or Elite Items after you buy them.
• Gambling gives you a place to spend your money on the higher difficulty levels (Nightmare, Hell), and gives you a better chance at getting good Rare and if you're lucky, Set and Unique Exceptional and Elite items that you are looking for. You can also get rare rings and amulets from Gambling which can be more difficult to find from monsters.
• Buying all of the items on one screen doesn't help to improve your chances any more than buying them one at a time per screen.
• Items are created when you hit the Gamble button on the NPC menu.
• You can reset the Gambling menu by exiting the screen, then by clicking on Gamble again. You can continue to do this rapidly until you get the specific type of item you're looking for.
• Once you've unlocked all the item types at level 48, the items shown will be the same from then on. However, as you reach higher Character Levels, more Magic Prefixes and Suffixes will show up on items Gambled and you'll have a better chance to get Exceptional and Elite items.
• The price for Gambling each item goes up as your character level goes up.
• Magic Find in no way affects Gambling.

You can also sell items to other players to generate money. Since the majority of people like to trade items for other items, many players have large amounts of cash (those who don't Gamble) they may be willing to use to buy your items. Sell armor for imbuing, and just about any other non Unique, non ultra important item to other players for Gambling money. Selling items to other players is even more appealing since the Vendors will only pay a maximum of 35,000 Gold for an item.

You can also kill players for money for Gambling but we won't talk about that here =)

Can I tell if an item will be Exceptional or Elite by its appearance on the Gambling screen?
In most cases no, however, you can tell with Coronet vs. Circlets.

Will Items that give a better chance of finding magic items have an effect on your chances at Gambling?
No.

Does the number of players in the game, the Act or Difficulty Level have any effect on the items you get from Gambling?
No, only level of character.

Base Item Levels
The quality level of an item comes into play in gambling. You will not see these items on the Gambling screen until your character level is +5 levels/-4 levels of the item's quality level requirement. This information is valuable to figure out when you'll be able to gamble for certain items.

Here is a list of the base item levels. To figure out at what Character levels a base item type will be available for Gambling, subtract 4 from the item's quality level, for having a chance to upgrade to Exceptional subtract 5, and for Elite subtract 7. Note: Item types that are not listed are not available for Gambling.