Every Diamond Casino Heist payout chart written before July 14, 2026 is now wrong — and not by a rounding error. Title Update 1.73, the Kortz Center Heist update, quietly turned the Casino Heist into a once-per-week payday. Run it twice in the same week and Rockstar pays you less the second time. That single change rewrites the entire "is the Casino Heist still worth it?" math.
This is the current reference: every vault target value at Normal and Hard, exactly how the new weekly completion bonus works, who takes a cut before you see a dollar, and what a real two-player run banks per person in 2026. Numbers Rockstar has published are marked as confirmed; numbers the community datamined are marked as reported — because on a money guide, that difference matters.
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TL;DR — Quick answer
- Standard Hard Mode take: GTA$2,533,300 on Diamonds, GTA$1,990,450 on Gold — gross, before cuts.
- First run of the week pays far more. Community testing puts the new first-completion bonus at roughly 1.86x, which tops out around GTA$4,711,938 (Diamonds, Hard). Rockstar confirmed the mechanic but has never published the multiplier.
- The big 2026 change: TU 1.73 added a weekly completion bonus. Your first Casino Heist finale of the week pays boosted; repeat runs in the same weekly period drop back to standard. The week resets Thursday.
- You cannot do the finale solo. Every prep and setup can be done alone, but the finale needs two players minimum (max four).
- Realistic per-player result: a clean two-player Gold run on Hard nets roughly GTA$700,000–850,000 each after Lester and crew cuts.
- Entry cost: an Arcade from GTA$1,235,000 (Pixel Pete's, Paleto Bay) plus a GTA$25,000 setup fee to Lester each run.
One-line version: The Diamond Casino Heist still pays well — but in 2026 it pays once a week. Run it Thursday, then move to a different heist instead of grinding the same one.
If your goal is a GTA$ balance ready for the November 19 launch window rather than a second job, the fastest route is topping up directly — but if you're grinding it, grind it correctly. Here's the current math.
What changed in Title Update 1.73?
On July 14, 2026, Rockstar shipped the Kortz Center Heist update — GTA Online's first brand-new heist since Cayo Perico in 2020 — and bundled an economy rebalance with it. The Diamond Casino Heist was directly affected.
Straight from Rockstar's official Title Update 1.73 notes:
"The following Contact Missions and Heists now have a weekly completion bonus, increasing GTA$ rewards for all players if the host has not yet completed the associated Finale in the current weekly period. Subsequent GTA$ rewards will be reduced if the host completes the same activity again in the current weekly period."
The Diamond Casino Heist – Finale is named on that list, alongside the Original Heists, all three Doomsday Heist acts, Cluckin' Bell Farm Raid, KnoWay Out, Oscar Guzman Flies Again and The Data Leaks. Rockstar also confirmed in the same notes that Cayo Perico's primary and secondary target appearance rates now refresh on the same weekly cadence, and that Cayo's target values were adjusted.
Two things worth being precise about:
- The mechanic is confirmed. Rockstar published the weekly-bonus wording itself.
- The exact multipliers are not. Rockstar has never printed a percentage. Community testers — the figures were first surfaced via RockstarINTEL — report first-run-of-the-week payouts landing roughly 1.8x to 4x the repeat-run value depending on the activity. Treat those as well-tested community math, not gospel.
The update also fixed a long-standing Casino Heist bug: Rockstar's notes list a fix for "players getting stuck in the Mantrap during The Diamond Casino Heist," plus a fix for players getting stuck joining the finale.
How much does the Diamond Casino Heist pay in 2026?
Your payout is decided by what's sitting in the vault when you scope it. This is the standard take — what you get on a repeat run in the same weekly period, with full bags:
| Vault target | Standard gross (Normal) | Standard gross (Hard) | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | GTA$1,480,500 | GTA$1,628,550 | Common |
| Artwork | GTA$1,645,000 | GTA$1,809,500 | Common |
| Gold | GTA$1,809,500 | GTA$1,990,450 | Common |
| Diamonds | GTA$2,303,000 | GTA$2,533,300 | Event weeks only |
Hard Mode adds a flat 10% to the vault contents. It also requires you to have completed the heist on Normal first, and it comes with tighter alarm and damage tolerances.
Diamonds are the outlier: Rockstar gates them to selected event weeks, so you cannot plan around them. Gold is the realistic best-case target you can actually chase week to week.
Now the part that changed in July. If the host has not yet completed the finale this weekly period, the first-completion bonus applies. Community testing puts that multiplier at roughly 1.86x the standard take:
| Vault target | First-of-week gross (Normal) | First-of-week gross (Hard) |
|---|---|---|
| Cash | GTA$2,753,730 | GTA$3,029,103 |
| Artwork | GTA$3,059,700 | GTA$3,365,670 |
| Gold | GTA$3,365,670 | GTA$3,702,237 |
| Diamonds | GTA$4,283,580 | GTA$4,711,938 |
That GTA$4,711,938 figure — Diamonds, Hard Mode, first run of the week — is the current ceiling for the Diamond Casino Heist. To be explicit about sourcing: Rockstar confirmed the bonus exists but has never published the multiplier, so treat the 1.86x and the second table as well-tested community math rather than official numbers. The first table and the mechanic itself are solid.
One more line item: clearing the Elite Challenge adds GTA$50,000 on Normal or GTA$100,000 on Hard. It requires finishing the finale in under 15 minutes without raising the alarm — very achievable on a stealth run, close to impossible on a loud one.
How does the weekly completion bonus actually work?
This is the part that decides your hourly rate in 2026.
- The weekly period resets on Thursday, in line with every other GTA Online weekly refresh.
- The bonus is tied to the host. If the host hasn't completed that finale since the last reset, the whole crew gets the boosted payout.
- Repeat runs in the same week pay reduced GTA$ — Rockstar's own wording.
- Rockstar has since patched a loophole where a heist started in the previous week still paid the first-time weekly bonus, so pre-loading a setup before reset and cashing it after no longer works as a bypass.
The practical consequence: the old "run Casino Heist on loop" strategy is dead. The correct 2026 pattern is rotation — take the first-of-the-week bonus on the Casino Heist, then move to a different bonus-eligible finale (Doomsday acts, the Original Heists, Cluckin' Bell) rather than re-running the same one for a shaved payout. Players in the r/gtaonline threads tracking the change have converged on the same conclusion: one good run of each beats four runs of one.
Rockstar softened the blow slightly — setup mission rewards for the Original Heists and The Doomsday Heist were increased in the same patch, which makes the rotation strategy more viable than it sounds.
Which approach should you run?
Three approaches, and the payout is identical across all of them — the vault contents decide the money, not the route. What changes is your risk of losing cash on the way out.
- Silent & Sneaky — full stealth. The best approach for protecting your take and the easiest path to the Elite Challenge bonus. Slowest to learn, most forgiving to your wallet.
- The Big Con — disguises (Gruppe Sechs is the community favourite for speed). The best balance of speed and safety, and the usual recommendation for a two-player crew that wants consistent runs.
- Aggressive — guns blazing. Fastest to set up, worst for your payout, because you take fire on the escape.
That last point is measurable. GTA BOOM's testing found that each hit you take while carrying loot strips roughly 0.12% to 0.26% of the cash you're currently holding — around GTA$2,000 per shot. On an Aggressive run where you're absorbing dozens of hits, that's a six-figure haircut on a Hard Mode gold take. Silent & Sneaky and The Big Con exist to keep that number near zero.
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Who takes a cut before you get paid?
The gross number is never what lands in your Maze Bank account. In order:
- Lester takes 5% of the total score, flat.
- Your support crew takes their percentage — you pick them during prep, and their cut is permanent for that run.
- Damage penalties are deducted (see above).
- The remainder splits between the player crew, at percentages the host sets. Per the GTA Wiki, each participating player has a minimum cut of 15%.
Support crew rates:
| Role | Option | Cut | Vault time | Unlock |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gunman | Karl Abolaji | 5% | — | Always available |
| Driver | Karim Denz | 5% | — | Always available |
| Hacker | Avi Schwartzman | 10% | 3:30 | Find all 50 Signal Jammers |
| Hacker | Paige Harris | 9% | 3:25 | Requires a Terrorbyte |
| Hacker | Christian Feltz | 7% | 3:00 | Always available |
| Hacker | Yohan Blair | 5% | 2:52 | Requires a Nightclub |
The rule of thumb: cheap out on the gunman and driver, pay up for the hacker. Karl Abolaji and Karim Denz cost 5% each and barely matter on a stealth or disguise run, while your hacker directly controls how many seconds you spend bagging loot — which is literally your payout.
Note the value trap in that table: Yohan Blair costs the same 5% as Christian Feltz costs 7%, but gives you eight fewer seconds of vault time. Feltz is the better buy of the two, and he needs no property at all. And whichever hacker you take, getting spotted on the way in costs you roughly a minute of vault time — which is worth far more than any cut you saved.
What a real two-player Hard Mode run banks
Take a Gold, Hard Mode, two-player run: GTA$1,990,450 gross.
- Lester's 5%: −GTA$99,523
- Karl Abolaji (5%) + Karim Denz (5%) + Paige Harris (9%) = 19%: −GTA$378,186
- Remaining: GTA$1,512,742
- Split evenly two ways: ≈GTA$756,000 each, plus the GTA$100,000 Elite Challenge bonus if you earn it.
That lands squarely inside the GTA$700,000–850,000 per-player range experienced two-player crews report for a clean Hard Mode gold run. Swap Paige for Christian Feltz (7%) and you keep an extra 2% — about GTA$20,000 more each — at the cost of 25 seconds of vault time, which is usually a bad trade unless your crew is fast and rehearsed.
And remember the multiplier on all of it: run that exact same heist as your first completion of the week and the gross jumps from GTA$1,990,450 to roughly GTA$3,702,237 — closer to GTA$1.4 million each. That one scheduling decision is worth more than every crew-cut optimisation combined.
Do you need an Arcade, and which one?
Yes. The host must own an Arcade and be an active CEO, VIP or MC President to launch the heist.
Arcade prices run from GTA$1,235,000 for Pixel Pete's in Paleto Bay up to GTA$2,530,000 for the Eight-Bit in Vinewood. There is no payout difference between any of the six — the only meaningful variable is travel time to the casino across a dozen prep missions.
That makes the cheapest option the worst one for the heist: Pixel Pete's sits up in Paleto Bay, the far north of the map. Videogeddon in La Mesa (GTA$1,875,000) is the closest Arcade to the casino and the one to buy if you plan to run this weekly. Buy Pixel Pete's only if GTA$1,235,000 is genuinely all you have.
Add the GTA$25,000 setup fee paid to Lester to begin the heist, plus small prep costs along the way.
On a first run of the week with a decent target, the Arcade pays for itself quickly. Under the new weekly-bonus economy, though, "quickly" means a couple of weeks of disciplined rotation — not two afternoons of grinding, the way it did in 2024.
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Is the Diamond Casino Heist still worth running in 2026?
Yes — once a week.
As a weekly first-completion, it's still one of the strongest paydays in GTA Online: two players, roughly 30–40 minutes of finale plus preps, and comfortably over a million each on a Hard Mode gold run with the bonus applied. Very little else in the game pays that for that time investment.
As a grind, it's finished. The whole point of TU 1.73 was to stop players farming one finale on repeat, and the reduced repeat payout does exactly that. If you're still running the Casino Heist three times on a Saturday, you're earning a fraction of what the same hours would pay spread across different heists.
The honest 2026 ranking for a heist-focused week looks like this: take the Kortz Center Heist first-completion as the biggest single payday, take the Casino Heist first-completion second, then rotate the Doomsday acts and Original Heists — which got increased setup rewards in the same patch — before you ever consider a reduced repeat run. Our Kortz Center vs Cayo Perico payout comparison breaks down where the new heist sits, and the Cayo Perico loot values guide covers the post-nerf numbers on the other side of that comparison.
And if the goal is simply having a stacked account before November 19, 2026 rather than maximising GTA$ per hour, weigh the grind honestly against the alternative — a few thousand dollars of virtual cash is not worth fifty hours of your life. Our best businesses guide covers the passive side of the equation.
FAQ
Can you do the Diamond Casino Heist solo? No. Every prep and setup mission can be completed alone, but the finale requires a minimum of two players because the vault door needs two people — a maximum of four can take part. This is the single most common misconception about the heist, and it hasn't changed in 2026.
What is the maximum Diamond Casino Heist payout? Roughly GTA$4,711,938 gross — Diamonds, Hard Mode, as the host's first completion of the weekly period. A repeat run that same week pays the standard GTA$2,533,300 instead. Both figures are before Lester's 5%, your support crew's cut and any damage penalties, and Diamonds only spawn during selected Rockstar event weeks — so the realistic ceiling most weeks is Gold at GTA$3,702,237 first-of-week or GTA$1,990,450 on a repeat.
Why did my Casino Heist payout drop? Because you already ran it this week. Title Update 1.73 (July 14, 2026) added a weekly completion bonus: your first finale of the weekly period pays the boosted rate, and subsequent runs in the same period pay reduced GTA$. The week resets on Thursday.
Which approach pays the most? None of them — the payout is set by the vault contents, not the approach. But Silent & Sneaky and The Big Con protect your take, because every bullet you absorb while carrying loot strips roughly GTA$2,000. Aggressive is the fastest to set up and the most expensive to finish.
Which hacker should I pick? Avi Schwartzman (10% cut, 3:30 vault time) is the best, but he's locked behind finding all 50 Signal Jammers. Paige Harris (9%, 3:25) is nearly identical if you own a Terrorbyte. If you have neither, Christian Feltz (7%, 3:00) is always available and is the correct default — he beats Yohan Blair, who costs less but gives eight seconds less vault time.
Which Arcade should I buy? All six work identically for the heist, so buy on location, not price. Videogeddon in La Mesa (GTA$1,875,000) is the closest to the casino and saves real time across every prep mission. Pixel Pete's in Paleto Bay is the cheapest at GTA$1,235,000 but is the furthest away — a false economy if you intend to run this weekly.
Does the Elite Challenge still pay? Yes. Finish the finale in under 15 minutes without raising the alarm and you earn an extra GTA$50,000 on Normal or GTA$100,000 on Hard. It stacks on top of your vault take, and it's realistically only achievable on Silent & Sneaky or a clean Big Con run.
