Food Club Guide

What is Food Club?

Food Club is an eating competition among 20 pirates in 5 arenas. Luckily, the pirates allow us Neopians to gamble our Neopoints at their expense! You bet your Neopoints on pirates that you think will win by eating the food the fastest in the eating competition. Each pirate has their own food-related preferences and shortcomings, so bet wisely. However, Food Club can be a great source of income, especially for older accounts!

You can access Food Club from Krawk Island's Warf Wharf, the Game Room, or the search bar on the left-hand bottom portion of your screen.

The Layout

When you first enter Food Club, depending on the time, you're greeted by a rather intimidating display of information. It looks something like this:

These are the statistics of each pirate in the Food Club eating contests. Let's break down this table:

• Strength. The odds of a pirate winning are strongly based on the pirate's strength.
• Weight. Weight does not affect anything in the game.
• Wins and Losses. Wins and losses can be disregarded in the Food Club pirate table because the "%" column includes this same information in a more easy-to-identify manner.
• %. The win percentage of a pirate indicates how well that pirate is doing when it comes to winning. This negates the need to look at a pirate's individual Wins and Losses.

Also on this page, at the top, is a navigation bar. We'll go through each of the options one by one.

Pirates

This is the main page, where you can learn about each pirate. To get to know each pirate on a more personal level, pay more attention to the chart displayed above. Each pirate's name is a link to more pirate-specific information that can affect the game.

For example, let's take a look at the strongest pirate, Gooblah the Grarrl . Take special notice to his food favorites and food allergies. A pirate's favorites and allergies are very important when it comes to whether or not you lose your hard-earned Neopoints. Secondly, acknowledge his strength which is an impressive 93! It's been noted that Gooblah is highly reliable when it comes to winning (but there are upsets and Gooblah will not win EVERY time). A pirate's wins and losses are important but are already summarized in any easier to understand percentage format on the main page/pirate stat page.

Courses

The Courses page lists all of the possible foods to be eaten in a Food Club competition. It's not very useful because you really want to know which foods are served in which arenas, which you can find on the Next Round page.

Place a Bet

The Place a Bet page is where you will be placing your bets. The betting period ends at 1:45 PM NST (Neopet standard time) each day, so make sure you place your bets before then. The maximum number of Neopoints you can bet is based on the age of your account. Since older accounts can bet more NP, they tend to earn more NP as well! You may have already noticed the math behind the amount of max NP you are allowed to bet has been done for you on the 'Place a Bet' page, right above the betting tables. You can only place 10 bets each day.

Current Bets

After you place bets, you can view the Current Bets page to see what bets you have made. You can have at most 10 bets per round, so you will want to plan your bets wisely. They should cover all your bases, insuring some kind of profit.

Collect Winnings

After 2:15 PM NST, you are able to collect your winnings on the Collect Winnings page - if your bets, of course, win. Wins can be saved up from previous rounds but will disappear completely if not collected before 7 days pass. If you're going for a trophy or like to procrastinate, do yourself a favor and make a mental note of the date so that when day 7 rolls around and the winnings are rewarded, you will be there to collect them.

Bet History

The Bet History page is where you can view your overall winnings. You can see how many bets you have placed, the total amount of Neopoints you have spent on your bets, how many Neopoints your bets have won you, and the difference. The difference tells you how many NP you have either won or lost since you placed your first-ever bet.

The difference proves whether or not you're wasting your time betting on food-guzzling pirates. If you ever get frustrated with Food Club, maybe after a few days of big losses, you can come back to this page and remind yourself why you keep playing!

Next Round

The Next Round page shows what pirates are competing in which arena and what food will be served. You always want this page whenever you are ready to bet on the next round. Also, you can click on any of the four pirates in each location to refresh your memory on what foods are their favorites or which foods they are allergic to.

Previous Round

If you want to see which of your bets have lost, you can view the Previous Round pages to learn which pirate won in each arena. The initial page will display which pirate won at the 'Shipwreck' arena and from there you can click on any of the other arenas to view. Each page will feature an image of the pirate and some cheesy pirate talk.

Leave

This just sends you back to Krawk Island . Ho hum.

How to Bet

Spend some time searching the web for Food Club guides and you'll most likely find Betting pages. These petpages usually give tips on each specific pirate's playing habits and/or lists the user's 10 personally chosen bets for that current round. A lot of beginning players introduce themselves to the game slowly by copying bets played by more experienced users. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. You may even choose to do that instead of learning how to properly play the game yourself and if so, then all the luck to you and whomever you're basing your bets on. Some popular betting guides are:

• Hugo's Food Club Page
• Lefty's Food Club Bets
• Garet's Food Club Bets

Above is an example of what the betting page will look like. Your screen will show different pirates, since the pirates in each arena change each day.

Notice the numbers located to the right of the pirates' names in the drop-down menus. Those are the pirate's odds. If you bet on that pirate and he wins his competition, you will win your NP placed on that bet multiplied by the pirate's odds of winning. In the above example, Scurvy Dan the Blade's odds are 2:1 (read "two-to-one"). That means you can win twice as much as you bet. If you bet the maximum NP of 1402 on Scurvy Dan, and he wins, you will win 1402 * 2 = 2804 NP. Similarly, Squire Venerable's odds are 13:1, so if you bet on him and he wins, you would win thirteen times whatever you bet. The higher the number in the pirate's odds, the higher payoff you will receive if that pirate wins, but the less likely it is that that pirate will actually win.

To place your bet, choose any arena by checking the box on the left hand side of the table. Click open that arena's corresponding drop down menu and select the pirate on whom you wish to bet. Type in your desired bet in the Bet Amount box. The total odds and total payoff boxes will update automatically.

If want to increase your payoff, you can add another arena to your bet by checking the box next to both arenas' names and selecting a pirate in both arenas. If both of your selected pirates win, your bets will be multiplied by both of their odds to calculate your payoff. For example, if you bet on two 2:1 pirate in two arenas, your winnings will be multiplied by 4. If you bet on one 2:1 pirate and one 13:1 pirate and they both win, your winnings will be multiplied by 26. Betting on multiple arenas decreases your chances of winning, but greatly increases your payoff.

The lowest (and best) odds are 2:1, while the highest (and worst) odds are 13:1. It may seem that going for 2:1 would be the "obvious" bet, but the "obvious" bet is not a guaranteed win and always playing it safe won't make you an impressive number of Neopoints.

If you're happy with all of the selections you've made, click the "Place this bet!" button. Make sure you plan out all of your bets before you start placing them, because you cannot take back a placed bet.

Things to remember when placing your bets:

• Correctly predicting winners in multiple arenas can greatly increase your winnings.
• Unless you're very un-confident in your bets, bet your maximum in order to maximize your payoff.
• You can use your multiple bets to cover possible pirates in one arena. For example, say Gooblah the Grarrl is competing in an arena with all of his favorite foods. There's a very high likelihood he will win, so you could place four bets on two arenas where you bet on Gooblah with each of the pirates in the other arena. As long as Gooblah wins, you're guaranteed a multiple-win payoff.
• Aim to win at least a 10:1 payoff. If you place 10 bets and win 4:1, you've actually lost NP.
• Make sure you bet by 1:45 PM NST!

Adjusting The Odds

A pirate's odds are the best way to predict their chances of winning. While the odds take into account the pirates' strength and food preferences, some users prefer to look at that information when developing their bets.

One way to do that is to use a pirate's food adjustment. A pirate's food adjustment number can be calculated by looking at the current round's pirates and the foods that they will be consuming in their respective location. To figure out a pirate's food adjustment, set up a chart and give one point to each pirate who enjoys a particular food being served, while also deducting a point for the pirates who have a problem with that food. A pirate with a +3 food adjustment is much more likely to win than a pirate with a -3 food adjustment.

Another factor to consider is the pirate's win percentages. This number can fluctuate strangely at times. Sometimes pirates who haven't won in awhile do pull out a win!

Also, keep in mind that the odds listed on the Place Your Bets page change throughout the day based on how other users are betting. Pirates with low odds tend to get lower and pirates with high odds tend to get higher. Don't worry, all of the winnings are calculated using the same odds for every user, but some people like to make sure they bet (or at least check the page) as close to 2:15 PM NST as they can to get the "true" odds.

Key Terms

Now that you are an expert in Food Club, maybe you want to boast about it? Or maybe for the good of Neopian-kind, you want to share your new found knowledge of the game? Here are a list of terms to remember when chatting with other Food Club players.

• Hit: A hit occurs when a bet you have placed wins.
• Food Adjustment: The food adjustment of a pirate comes from that pirate's specific food allergies and food favorites. For instance, if one of the pirates had to ingest something that were spicy and they had a horrific allergy to spicy foods, then that pirate would be left with a negative food adjustment. It would be shown as, -1 food adjustment. In a sentence: Gooblah the Grarrl has a -1 (or 0, -1, -2. -3, +1, +2,+3, etc) food adjustment!"
• Multiplier: Typically a pirate with 2:1 or 3:1 odds that doubles or triples the potential winnings of a bet. Some Neopians use multipliers alongside with the next key term, safeties.
• Safety: A safety is a back up bet that covers all of your unlikely-to-win bets.
• Bonanza!: A risky bet that is usually more than 75:1 odds!
• -1, 0, +1, +2, etc.: This is a way to easily describe a pirate's food adjustment number. For example, if a pirate had absolutely no allergies but 2 of his favorite foods were on the menu for that round then you would say, "Such and such pirate has a +2 food adjustment."
• Upset: An upset is when a pirate who is not favored to win actually wins. That is usually upsetting because your carefully-planned bets are blown away by a pirate with terrible odds!

Winning the Trophy

If you want to win the Food Club trophy, you need to plan out your bets very carefully, and save your winnings! The trophy is awarded to those who collect the most winnings. You can keep your winnings for a maximum of 7 days, so you can collect winnings from up to 8 rounds of bets!

The high score table resets each month, so your best chances of winning are on the first of the month. This means you want to start saving up your winnings (that is, not collecting them) a few days before the end of the month, usually around the 24th or 25th. Then, on the first of the month, wait until after 2:15 PM NST to collect your winnings and maximize your chances at earning a trophy.

Since winnings are based on actual NP won rather than units won, older accounts are more likely to win the trophies. For this reason, some users have their own side competitions that keeps score in units, where any player would win 10 units on a 10:1 bet. Those competitions are not official, though, and will win you nothing but bragging rights.

You will probably not earn a trophy by blindly following another user's bets, since many players (especially those with older accounts) also follow those bets. You may need to make riskier bets and hope for a big payoff.