Food Club: A Guide for Beginners

Food Club is essentially a gambling game featuring Pirates and Food. You can take the easy option and guess the winners, much like you would do on Turdle Racing and Poogle Racing, or you could go for the more "profitable" option of viewing the contestants' statistics, their strengths and weaknesses, the available foods, and even take winning streaks (and losing streaks) into account (and then throw it all away in favour of gut instinct). Sound complicated? It really isn't as difficult as it seems...

Below is a very basic step-by-step guide to the pirates, the courses, the arenas, and the main part of Food Club, the betting. Hopefully it will help you to better understand the basics of the game, and perhaps give you an insight to the more complicated parts.

Step 1: The Pirates

When you enter the Food Club, you will see 20 slightly overweight pirates who have obviously never heard of the word "diet". Each pirate has their own strength and weight, and there is a table of wins and losses. Study the pirate more carefully, and he (no female pirates compete in this game) will let you know what foods he prefers and what can give him an upset stomach. Gooblah the Grarrl is often a favourite in most rounds due to his strength and weight, and his surprising ability to overcome allergies as if they were nothing. (Grarrls will eat anything, you know...)

Step 2: The Courses

In the section marked "Courses", you will see the list of foods of which could possibly come up in the competition. Each food has at least one of over ten different categories. Some foods can have up to three; for example, the cheese and tomato sub is a dairy, fruit and bread food. Not all the foods are in categories you would expect, and the Pirates are even forced to eat Gross Foods like Worm and Leech Pizza, yum!

Step 3: The Arenas

Clicking on the "Next Round" link will take you to the main part of the Food Club. Here is where you can view the five arenas: Shipwreck, Lagoon, Treasure Island, Hidden Cove and Harpoon Harry's. Each arena holds four competitors and ten courses. This is where it is best to decide who you think will win.

Step 4: Picking Your Winner

Compare the pirates, and check their favourites and allergies. Then click on each food to find its category. Your choice should preferably be a pirate who has lots of favourites and few allergies. Quite often, this can be a close call, and the strength and weight can sometimes help you to decide. If you see your chosen has a very low win percentage, always look it over again to make sure. Have a look at all arenas, but remember: you do not have to bet if you don't like the look of it.

Step 5: Placing Your Bets (i)

You are allowed up to 10 bets. The maximum bet you can make depends on how long you have been playing Neopets: you get a base 50NP bet, plus 2NP for every day you have had the account. Before you put down your bet, have a look at the odds for each competitor; the stronger and more likely potential winners usually have lower odds. But sometimes you will notice a competitor with low odds that you may have previously overlooked...

Step 6: Placing Your Bets (ii)

By now, you should have chosen at least one winner. You should now place a bet on your favourite by selecting his name from the dropdown menu, selecting the box and putting down your bet amount in the table underneath. How much you wish to bet is up to you; the higher the bet, the more you can win, but also the more you can lose. The table calculates your potential winnings. Your bet amount depends how confident you are with your chosen pirate.

Step 7: Placing Your Bets (iii)

Single bets are fairly simple, but you also have the option to bet on multiple arenas at the same time. This increases your odds greatly, but it also means you have to get every winner in that particular bet correct. To start, I would advise going for single bets, and if you have two or more single bets you feel are going to win, pair up the pirates and see if they can bring you a nice profit.

Step 8: Let The Eating Commence!

At 1:45pm NST everyday, betting closes and you can do nothing but sit and wait on the results. Go play with your pet, perhaps feed it (but maybe not 10 courses...) or find another way to amuse yourself. The pirates are busy eating and do not appreciate distractions, so you are not even allowed to watch. (It's not a pretty sight, anyway...)

Step 9: The Results

At 2:15pm NST, you can finally see the winners. To do this, you can go to the Previous Round link and look at each arena to see which pirate has won, although if you can't take all the suspense of looking at each arena individually, go straight to Collect Winnings. If you have been successful, you will see your winning bet(s) here. If not, there is a new competition already waiting for you to make some fresh choices, with new combinations of Pirates and Food... Just remember that it is a mixture of skill and luck, and the favourite pirate doesn't always win...

Lastly, I'd like to say a final "thank you" for taking the time to read this, and give a special mention to some friends who have (mis)guided and kept me entertained through Food Club!