Racketeering in Mafia Wars – A Primer

Recently Zynga has been experimenting with Rackets as an eventual replacement for properties. At this time not all accounts have access to them. Some established accounts have been converted and a percentage of new accounts come equipped with rackets instead of properties.

Out of over a dozen established accounts none of mine have been converted to rackets and as a test I created 6 new accounts and only one was given rackets instead of properties, so it would appear that this feature is being tested on a very small percentage of accounts.

Rackets are different than owing properties in that you must return within a specific time period to collect your cash. The time frames are 4, 8, 22, 24, and 65 hours. In my opinion requiring players to return within a time frame or risk being busted by the cops (lose all money) will make it more difficult for some to earn money. Many people only log into Mafia Wars once or twice per day. Perhaps rackets and their time frames is Zynga’s way of getting their advertising in front of members more often.

Along with the implementation of rackets we have been given another skill pool to divide our skill points among. Influence is the new pool and is the “currency” used in racketeering. Each racket costs a specific amount of influence in order to run. Many players, my self included believe that this additional pool will cause characters to be weaker since there is less to spend on attack and defense.

When starting out you will have access to a few rackets that you can run. You must master each of them to open up new rackets. Some rackets are only available based on level and again must be mastered to open up more advanced versions.

Here is a quick list of the rackets that are available along with their prerequisites and rewards.

Personally I find that I both like and dislike rackets. I dislike them because they seem rather slow and clunky to start as well as weakening my characters because they have to spend skill points on yet another skill pool. I like rackets because once you attain higher levels and advanced forms of them the boosts are pretty handy. Getting boosts without having to re-vault items makes things easier.

When it comes down to it my opinion is irrelevant. If you have access to rackets spend some time learning how to make them work for you. Since rackets are in beta feel free to post you thoughts on the Mafia Wars forums. Love them or hate them, let Zynga know what you think.