Staking can be a viable strategy for gaining RS Money for Old School RuneScape players. This guide will cover all the details that you need for this method and clear up any misconceptions that you may have.

Many players decide to use staking as their primary method for earning gold within Old School RuneScape. It is a relatively high risk (at least compared to other methods), but it is a much higher reward.

If you are staking, remember to ensure that the other player agrees to the commonly agreed set of rules. It can be easy to miss a box, but a checkbox such as “allow prayer” or allowing armor can make your typical whip stakes highly imbalanced. Therefore, it’s recommended to use a preset and check carefully before confirming your stake, particularly if it's a large amount and not a smaller stake for fun.

Attack styles

The attack styles you choose do have an effect. It’s important to use Deflect when your opponent is about to attack you (immediately after your attack). And when you’re about to strike your hit, you should use the Flick style attack.

Deflect increases your Defence by 3 levels, whereas Flick increases your Attack by 3 levels. The Lash style will increase your Defence, Attack, and Strength by 1 level each respectively. The issue with the Lash style is that you gain a level for Strength, but the maximum hit you can achieve is already achieved at least 99, any further bonuses don’t increase your maximum hit.

Staking tax

Staking tax is something that exists within the game. Gold is introduced to the economy all the time, bosses even drop large sums of gold out of thin air and introduce it into the game. Therefore, the Duel Arena is used as a ‘gold sink’, taking gold out of Old School RuneScape, and decreasing the rate of inflation within the game.

If your stake is below 10 million OSRS GP, the stake tax will be 0.25%, anything above 10 million GP will be taxed at 0.5%. So for a 10 million gold stake, you’ll be taxed 50,000 gold. There’s really no way to avoid this tax since it was introduced, although it’s possible to have a fight within the wilderness, you rely on trusting the other player to pay you afterward. Therefore, this approach generally isn’t recommended.

Have fun staking!