Duel arena in Old School RuneScape is a big part of the game. So much in fact, that some players only play the game there or with the aim of spending most of their time playing OSRS there. To help those who plan to spend most of their time in the duel arena, we've created this OSRS staking guide.

The mix of safe combat, competitiveness, and possible high rewards make staking attractive to thousands of players.

Complete OSRS Staking Guide

Where is Duel Arena?
Duel Arena Rules
How To Stake in Duel Arena
Staking Strategies in Duel Arena
Renting a Max Main vs. Using Your Own Account

If you're a RuneScape beginner, then let us introduce you to the duel arena, what’s so special about it, and how to become a famed dueling master.

Where is the Duel Arena?

Duel arena is located in Al Kharid. To get to where the Duel Arena is, you simply need to pass the Lumbridge gate and follow the path west. You’ll have to pay a 10 coin toll to the guards if you haven’t completed the quest Prince Ali Rescue, after which you can get through the gate for free.

There is also a way to get there for free by going to the Duel Arena from Varrock. There is a gap in the fence south of Varrock. You will enter the desert and the arena will be in the south.

Duel Arena Rules

Duel arena functions as a safe zone, where you can die without being penalized at all. You will just wake up in the arena’s hospital as if nothing ever happened. An NPC named Mubariz will provide you with basic information about the arena if asked.

Challenging another player is easy, you just need to right-click on them and click "challenge". If they accept, the duel is on!

There are no level, gear, or quest requirements in the Duel Arena. You can enter it as soon as you’re out of Tutorial Island.

However, there are some rules regarding duels themselves and those can be customized until both players are satisfied with the settings.

osrs staking guide for runescape beginners

You should always familiarize yourself with the rules and if something is unclear either turn on “display inventories” or reject the duel altogether.

There are always sketchy players hanging about the duel arena trying to trick a less knowledgeable player. It’s always better to skip a duel than to lose your stake, which can potentially amount to millions of OSRS GP.

How To Stake in the Duel Arena

Getting started in the Duel Arena is pretty simple: as mentioned above, you need only to challenge your opponent and they need only to accept your challenge. However, it gets more complicated for those aiming to make lots of money out of it.

While, theoretically you can use any armor, weapons, and spells and can be of any combat level, there are certain guidelines you’ll have to follow to beat your opponents with decent certainty. Or have a reasonable chance to win, if they’re using the same method.

You also need to have a decent amount of RS GP to make a good amount of money from staking and there’s no better place to buy cheap OSRS gold than Probemas!

First, the safest way to duel is for both opponents to be of the same combat level and usually it’s the maximum combat level.

Second, you need to have the appropriate gear. Now, the better your gears are, the higher your chances of coming out victorious and rich.

Staking Strategies in Duel Arena

There are various ways you can implement to be successful staking in RuneScape's duel arena and we're going to tell you some of them here.

Odds Staking

Odds staking was a strategy that a lot of dedicated duelists were using. Essentially, it was a system of comparing both players’ levels and using that difference to determine how much you should stake.

For example, if one player has 95 Attack, 96 Strength, 95 Defense, 99 Hitpoints and another has 92 Attack, 90 Strength, 95 Defence, and 99 Hitpoints, the second player should stake less than the first one because of him or her having the lower levels, and thus a lower chance of winning.

While this seems logical on paper, the amount of OSRS gold at stake would often be arbitrary, with the experienced staker taking advantage of a less knowledgeable player and coming on top anyway by the end of their dueling session.

Experienced odds stakers used to use a formula to accurately calculate how much they could stake and their odds of winning by accounting for both players’ skill levels.

Odds staking, in general, was very controversial. It created a huge gap between veteran stakers and people who were staking more or less just for fun. This is why after the duel arena update the staking part of dueling was changed a lot.

The difference in the value of items or the amount of RuneScape gold or platinum tokens on a stake cannot exceed 10k gold anymore. This means that if you stake 100k gold, your opponent can stake anywhere between 90k to 110k.

Additionally, to get two birds with one stone, Jagex implemented a tax for each duel. You will not be taxed if you don’t stake anything, however, the more you stake the higher the tax rate is being applied.

Want to know more about this update? Check out our post about the new Duel Arena tax system.

computing how much to stake in runescape duel arena

As you can see, the tax is not that high, however, it still adds up with time. This was implemented as a money sink to reduce inflation rates of OSRS gold as well as to combat people profiting off staking as Jagex felt that this way of making money was too powerful.

Player Identification Number in RuneScape (PID)

Player identification number, or PID for short, is a number given to a player by the server. This number defines your “position”, so to speak, in a given game world. Quite literally PID functions as a sort of queue.

The lower your number, the sooner your actions will be calculated by the game and, therefore, the better. Having the PID of 10 is better than having a PID of 23.

This feature of RuneScape is as old as RuneScape itself: it has been there since the first iteration of the game, currently referred to as RuneScape Classic. Back in the good old days, the PID system was stagnant and you were stuck with the one assigned to you once you logged in.

The only way to change it was to relog. Oh, and players were able to see their PID’s. This meant that players had a limited amount of control over their PID’s. But this little control that they had was all that they needed.

Players picked the system up quickly and figured out how to abuse it in various situations, dueling included. There are cases of players waiting for hours to get the best PID before dueling. And once they got it, all hell unleashed. Having a better PID tipped the scales a lot.

Dueling against the same level opponent, but having a lower PID meant a huge increase in chances to win. If both players need only one hit to kill the other one, the one player with lower PID would win, because their hit would be calculated first. This system became so notorious and controversial, that with years, Jagex decided to hide PID from players and later to make it dynamic.

Nowadays, PID changes randomly at an interval of 60 to 90 seconds. Despite the random nature of the modern PID system, it is still possible to figure out your position in this digital queue. Sort of.

If you click “Follow” on another player and once they move, you move at the same time and without delay, that means that your PID is lower.

If you move with a delay, yours is higher, meaning their actions take priority over yours. Since PID’s change constantly and you can only find those whose is higher or lower with the “Follow” method.

These don’t play such an important role anymore and, therefore, people started relying on other staking strategies.

Martingale System and Staking

The Martingale System is a staking method that comes straight from the gambling world. This makes it perfect for Duel Arena a.k.a Sand Casino. The system is very simple and very reliable: all you need to do is to stake twice the amount of gold you lost in the previous duel.

Let’s say you start with a 2 Million OSRS GP stake. Lost? Stake 4 Million next time. Lost again? Stake 8m Million Once you win, begin with the 2 Million again. While it’s not too exciting, this system is guaranteed to bring you precious coins eventually. With the previous example, you will always come out with 2 Million gold on top. The starting stake depends on how much gold you have in total.

If you can afford to go through an extensive losing streak, make your base stake bigger. If you can’t, then don’t use this method in the Duel Arena and refrain from staking more than 20% of your gold each time. Play it safe and have a good amount of gold on you as a reserve.

Reminder: Only stake what you can afford to lose, just like what you should do in the real world.

The main drawback when it comes to staking in Old School RuneScape is you will need to find players who are willing to stake the same amount as you do. Using this system against the same player multiple times might make them suspicious.

Also, know that a lot of people are aware of this strategy: it’s not a secret, despite what shady ads on the internet might tell you.

The Safest Staking Method

Currently, dueling in OSRS is mostly based on luck, rather than skill. Since information on the internet is abundant, people can get a good idea of optimal itemization in a matter of minutes. One of the most iconic dueling weapons is the abyssal tentacle and it is chosen for its reliability as well as its good price.

Abyssal tentacle

abyssal tentacle for staking in duel arena

Stats: 90 slash, 86 strength
Attack styles:
Flick gives +3 attack bonus
Lash gives +1 to each attack, strength, and defense
Deflect gives +3 defense bonus

Renting a Max Main vs. Using Your Own Account

Updates to the duel arena did not manage to quench the thirst of battle. Sure, some players are less willing to go dueling nowadays, however, in general, Duel Arena remains a big part of OSRS.

With good demand, supply is quickly to follow and in this case, we’re talking about OSRS accounts made with dueling in mind. If you’re one of those people who are aiming for maximum profit in the duel arena, you might have noticed that there are a lot of OSRS accounts that are being put on for rent.

You can rent a maxed staker for a certain period of time, pay in OSRS gold or real-world currency, and go staking without having to level your account yourself. This method, while clear and easy to use at first glance, has some issues.

First and foremost, you are paying too much for the service. Sure, for a quick buck it’s really convenient. However, if you’re renting often, you’re losing gold quite fast.

The issue is that each time you rent an account you are paying for the gear that’s on that account and also a certain fixed amount for the service itself. You can think of it as buying the Abyssal tentacle over and over again instead of using the same one.

Essentially, that is a tax that could be easily avoided. Second, such a service is not ideal if you wish to save your time.

Not only do you have to wait for the provider to deliver account details, but you will definitely get locked out, because of logging in from a different IP. Sure, the service provider will take only a couple of minutes to activate the account, but all this time adds up.

Third, let’s also not forget the risk of getting banned. You do not know how that account was used. If someone ran even the simplest bot on it, it basically has a target on its back. Imagine staking your 100m and winning only to get banned because some other customer abused the rules.

We can see that account rental is only ideal as a temporary measure and is far from being the best deal. Ideally, you wish to have your own account to do staking with.

For those short on time and are unable to level accounts themselves, our recommendation is to simply buy osrs account instead.

While this option is more expensive short-term, it saves you more and more money in the long run. Not only that, but you are the only person with account details, meaning that you can safely stake whatever amounts of gold using the account and not get banned.

Last, but not least, in the long run, this saves time as well as money/gold and you can also experiment with various builds if you like to.

Just remember to avoid recoveries and never buy accounts from other players, instead buy them from trusted companies like Probemas.

Final Thoughts About Staking In OSRS

There is always more to learn in OSRS and the amount of possible equipment/combat level combinations is beyond the scope of this blog post.

The moment you feel like you’ve mastered the art of dueling and start making serious bank, consider selling OSRS gold on our site to make some serious cash!

If you need further assistance in your journey in Gielinor, go ahead and join our Discord server and get the chance to interact with fellow RS players all over the world. You may also win amazing RuneScape rewards on our members-only giveaways.

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Last Updated: 01/02/2022

OSRS Staking Guide - Dominate The RuneScape Duel Arena