Mafia Wars Rackets: What They Are and How to Run Them

If you have been playing Mafia Wars recently, you may notice a new tab that was not available before: rackets. Rackets are "schemes" that allow you to make money while gaining experience points.

Zynga is currently testing rackets in newer Mafia Wars accounts. Eventually, they hope to replace property purchases with rackets. This move has brought many protests from regular users of the game app. However, Zynga hopes that rackets will keep players coming back to the game throughout the day.

So how do rackets work in Mafia Wars? When you click on the rackets tab on the menu app at the top of the Mafia Wars screen, you're initially given only a few options for racket schemes. These include shakedowns such as a three card monte and a strip club shakedown. In order to complete these rackets, you must have at least the number of "influence points" the specific racket requires. Influence points are located in the top menu with energy points, stamina points and the other currency of Mafia Wars.

When you choose a racket to complete, Mafia Wars deducts the required influence points from your account. Once the racket has run (each racket will specify how long the racket takes to complete), the influence points are returned to your total. You can then run the racket again to master it or you can begin mastering a separate racket.

In your racket menu, you may notice many grayed out rackets. These rackets will specify the racket that must be completed in order to make the connected racket available. When you hit the "Shake Down" button on a particular racket, you will see your master progress level bar under each racket. Unfortunately, this bar only gives percentages and doesn't let you know exactly how many rackets you must run before you master that racket.

The most crucial element of a racket is time. Each racket takes a certain amount of time to run - from a few hours to a few days. In order to retrieve the money (your "take") from the racket as well as the used influence points, you must arrive close to the rackets completion time. This ensures that you don't return to a busted racket and you don't lose both your money and your influence points. The key to mastering this is figuring out when the best time of the day is for you to play Mafia Wars and setting up the rackets so they finish close to when you normally play the game.

Rackets aren't difficult, but you will lose a few if you have any life outside of Mafia Wars. The best way to deal with this is by allocating a few skill points now and then to obtaining additional influence points. Good luck!