Fallout New Vegas Benny: Who He Is and Every Way to Deal With Him

Benny is the man in the checkered suit who shoots the Courier in the head in the opening minutes of Fallout New Vegas, and finding him is what the first third of the game is about. He runs the Chairmen, the tribe that operates The Tops casino on the Strip, and he took the Platinum Chip you were carrying because he had a plan for it that did not involve Mr. House. This page covers who Benny is, what he did and why, every way of dealing with him once you reach The Tops, what happens to him afterwards on each route, and what he carries.

The facts below come from the Independent Fallout Wiki's pages on Benny and on the quests Ring-a-Ding-Ding! and Render Unto Caesar. Where one of our own pages already covers a piece of the story, such as the pistol Maria on our unique weapons page, that page is the one to follow. The rest of the people the Courier deals with, the doctors, vendors and repairers, are on our NPCs guide.

Who Benny Is

Before Mr. House took the Strip, Benny belonged to the Mojave Boot-Riders, a tribal gang. House hired the tribe to renovate The Tops and renamed them the Chairmen, and Benny saw more in the arrangement than their chief, Bingo, did. Bingo settled the argument by challenging him to a knife fight, and Benny won it by opening Bingo's throat. By the time the game opens he has been head Chairman for seven years, with four bodyguards, a presidential suite on the 13th floor and a lounge-singer manner modelled on the Rat Pack. His look is a nod to the gangster Bugsy Siegel, and he is voiced by Matthew Perry.

His ambition is New Vegas itself. He disabled one of House's Securitrons with a pulse grenade and, with help from a Followers of the Apocalypse technician named Emily Ortal, had it reprogrammed into a robot that would obey anyone who spoke to it: Yes Man. Through Yes Man's connection to House's network Benny learned that a courier was carrying the Platinum Chip, the key to House's plans, and hired three Great Khans, Jessup, McMurphy and Chance, to take it. The result is the opening cinematic: the Courier is bound and gagged in Goodsprings Cemetery, Benny explains that the game was rigged from the start, and fires.

Following Him to The Tops

The main quest They Went That-a-Way traces Benny's route from Goodsprings through Primm, Nipton and Novac to Boulder City, where the Khans who escorted him are holed up. Two things collected on the way matter later: Benny's engraved cigarette lighter, which Jessup hands over or drops in Boulder City, and the Khan Hospitality note, and the trail is walked step by step in our walkthrough. Reaching the Strip needs 2,000 caps in your pocket for the gate's credit check, a passport forged by Ralph in Freeside, or a Science check of 80 on the gate Securitron, and once you are through, Benny is at The Tops.

Every visitor to The Tops hands over their weapons at the door, which is the problem the quest Ring-a-Ding-Ding! is built around. The answer is Swank, the Chairman on the front desk. Swank needs to be convinced that Benny has gone behind the tribe's back, and he counts evidence and Speech checks together: the distinctive cigarette butt from Goodsprings, the engraved lighter, the Khan Hospitality note and knowledge of Yes Man each count as one piece, and Speech checks at 15, 30 and 45 stand in for any you are missing. Two pieces get your weapons back and keep the Chairmen out of the fight. Three get Benny sent up to his suite alone, with the suite key in your pocket.

Every Way to Deal With Benny

Two of those routes are the only ways to open The Tops' sub-basement: forgiving Benny or sleeping with him. Whichever route you take, the presidential suite key ends up with you, and Swank becomes the new boss of the Chairmen once Benny is dead or gone.

The 13th Floor

The elevator to the presidential suite takes the suite key. If Benny has sent you up alone, he greets you over the intercom to say he will not be attending the meeting, and the ambush that follows is the fight the quest's third stage warns about. The suite itself holds two things worth the trip. One is a safe that needs Lockpick 50, with a 10mm submachine gun, a grenade rifle and a power fist inside along with their ammunition. The other is Yes Man, the Securitron Benny rebuilt, who explains what the Platinum Chip is for and opens the independent route through the main quest, the Wild Card line, if you want it. Yes Man is friendly to everyone, which is the whole point of him, and talking to him costs nothing even if you intend to work for House, the NCR or the Legion instead.

Benny at The Fort

If Benny escapes The Tops, the Legion catches him. When Caesar summons the Courier to The Fort in Render Unto Caesar, Benny is already there as a prisoner, and Caesar offers his death as a reward for good service: the Courier gets to choose how he dies. The choices are to have him crucified outside the camp, to kill him yourself while he is restrained, to have him fight in the arena, or simply to walk away and leave him. There is also a way out for him. Slip him a Stealth Boy and a bobby pin and he can escape, but releasing him makes the whole Legion hostile and the quest cannot be finished, so it is the end of the Legion route. The Platinum Chip is returned to you at The Fort in any case, once Caesar's first task is done.

One bug is worth knowing here. It is possible for two versions of Benny to exist at The Fort at the same time, one crucified and one standing, and only the standing one carries Maria.

What Benny Carries

For a fight, Benny is tougher than he looks. His SPECIAL is Strength 7, Perception 5, Endurance 5, Charisma 3, Intelligence 3, Agility 6 and Luck 5, his level scales with yours from 8 up to 50 with the add-ons installed, and his health runs from 205 at the low end to 415 at the top. The bodyguards are the real danger, which is why the routes that separate him from them are the ones the quest rewards.

What His Fate Changes

Killing Benny at The Tops does not cost you the Chairmen if Swank was on your side first; it simply promotes Swank. What you do with the chip afterwards is the real fork: The House Always Wins takes it back to Mr. House, Wild Card: Change in Management uses Yes Man instead, and the Legion route runs through Render Unto Caesar, where Benny's death is the opening courtesy. An NCR playthrough does not need him at all, since the Republic's quests do not require settling with Benny when you first reach the Strip, so he can live out the game in his suite. Benny also appears outside the game, in the graphic novel All Roads that came with the Collector's Edition and as a Joker in its deck of Vault playing cards. Our companions page covers the people who will actually walk into The Tops with you.