Lockpicks

Im not sure if this is the right place, but I want to know what lockpicks are used for, i havent played for like 4 months so a lot of the game is new to me again. Thanx in Advance.

There was a new update in which they introduced Hard Mode. Once you activiate Hard Mode and go into a mission/explorable area, all chests are turned into Locked Chests which can only be opened with Lockpicks.

[wiki]Lockpick[/wiki]

Lockpicks can also open chests in normal mode. There is always a percentage chance that a pick will break (base 90% in hardmode for an L20 character), much lower chance in normal mode.

Does it give a better chance at a gold item? or is it just for fun?

It doesn't increase your chance of a better drop, just the chance of getting more chests open for the same amount of gold.