Zed Run is web3 horse-racing game that allows players to own, breed, and race digital horses. Though many gaming projects have come and gone in the past few years, Zed Run has been around since January 2019 and was one of the first NFT projects on the Polygon blockchain. I only started playing a few months ago, and have earned some small profits while enjoying the strategy that comes with playing this game.

If you're interested in getting started, it can be overwhelming at first, with terms like Nakamoto, genotypes, Evo, double-ups, Y2K2K, etc. It will take quite a while to get used to all these terms, but in this no-frills guide, I'll show you 2 low to zero risk ways to be profitable in Zed Run ;)

Getting Started

First, if you don't already have a stable, sign up at the official Zed Run site. Zed runs on the Polygon network (ie. all transactions like buying horses, paying entry fees, etc. are on Polygon), but you connect your Metamask wallet to Zed via Ethereum.

Next, join the Zed Run Discord. The Zed community is actually super helpful and there's always someone willing to explain/share their strategies and theories. Remember to connect your Metamask via CollabLand so you have full access to all the channels. This step is necessary for the strategies I will be sharing.

Strategy 1: Borrow a horse to grind free races ($0 risk, very low reward)

Many big stables don't have time to race all their horses. Here's the first strategy that involves 0 risk - borrow a horse from someone and offer to grind free races for a fee. A TLDR explanation is that horses have levels - leveling up gives horses more speed. Horses can level up through gaining XP in free or paid races, paids give more XP but stables might lose money in the process. Some stables want their horses leveled up and will pay a small fee to someone to grind free races - that's where you can earn a small amount of money starting with $0. One way you can do this is look in the #want-to-lend channel and see if anyone is offering payments for someone to run free races. However, you might have a better chance posting in the #want-to-borrow channel that you're looking to grind free races. There isn't really a market value for this so it depends on the stable you're working with; some will pay per x number of races, some by level, etc. Don't expect to make bank doing this though, it's more for players who have a lot of time on their hands and don't mind brainless clicking. You usually get payments in (Polygon) ETH though, so might be worth it in the long run ;)

Strategy 2: Borrow a horse to race double-up paids (Some risk, higher reward)

If you have some (Polygon) ETH you don't mind using, look out for a good double-up horse in the marketplace or #want-to-lend channel. When you analyze horses to buy or borrow, you want to target a specific race type that they'll be profitable in. For this strategy we'll focus on 12-horse double-up races, meaning the 1st-6th place gets a payout that's double their entry fee. For example, if you enter a $2.50 double-up race and finish 1st-6th, you will receive $5 (ie. $2.50 profit). Here's a simple way to find a good double-up racer:

1. Go to the Hawku marketplace - the default Zed marketplace that has lots of stats you can use to analyze a horse.

2. If you're thinking of borrowing a specific horse, type the horse's name in the search bar and click on it.

3. Make sure it has a positive profit (blue circle). You'd also want its current level to be as close to x00 as possible. The underlined numbers are starting level, current level, and max level; V is the class that the horse will race in. For this horse, level 188 is not too bad but 200 would be the most ideal.

4. Click on the horse and click Filters. Select "Paid Only" and under Racing 2.0, select "Racing 2.0". This shows you the horse's most recent performance in paid races since the current version of racing (2.0) started. Click "Save" and scroll down to view the horse's 12 Horse Race Stats. A profitable double-up horse will have a 1-6 Finish rate >50%. Check that the data is reliable too - this has 174 races so it's a good enough sample size. I personally look for at least 50 races - the more races the better.

Step 5. Final checks! If you're buying the horse, 63.8% 1-6 Finish rate should be profitable in the long run. For this horse she might be even more profitable in the future because she still has some levels to go before reaching 200. If you're borrowing a horse, you will have to share some profit with the lender so do your calculations and make sure you'll still be profitable. For example if I'm borrowing this horse with a 95% split to me, 5% to lender, 63.8% is good enough for me to make a profit running it. However if the split is 50/50, this isn't going to be a profitable horse for you to run.

Strategy 2.1: Using Hawku to buy a profitable double-up horse

From the main Hawku page, click the Zed collection and click Filters. Scroll till you see Recent Race Filters (2.0 only). Under Recent Paid Races enter 50 on the left box (ie. minimum 50 paid races) and Recent ETH gained enter 0.005 on the left box (ie. minimum 0.005ETH gained in Racing 2.0). You can also go to Advanced Filters > 1-6 Finish % and enter 60 on the left (ie. minimum 60% 1-6 Finish %). Feel free to adjust the filters as needed; for example if you want a more proven racer, you can increase in the minimum number of races/ETH gained/top 6 %, of course more proven racers will be more expensive. After filtering, be sure to click on the horse and analyse it using the same method as above. Sometimes, the recent ETH gained can be misleading as the horse might have won money in their maiden (a horse's first ever race that often has weaker fields) or tournaments, and won't actually make you a profit in daily paid racing.

Other quick tips

• If you're just getting started, I recommend running horses in lower classes that have lower entry fees. Classes 5 and 6 have $1 entry fees so I would suggest starting there. Competition gets super intense in the higher classes and you're probably gonna end up donating money to big stables there (I have avoided Class 1 like the plague - you can lose money quickly if you don't know what you're doing).
• Ask loads of questions in the Discord and get links to guides. If you're really serious about getting good at the game, people are super willing to help! Players are also active on Twitch/Twitter/Youtube and you can get a lot of insight from those content.
• These strategies are more suitable for people who want a slow and steady profit; it's definitely not a get-rich-quick method. You can get started with $10-$20 worth of ETH and slowly build from there!

Final Thoughts

There's quite a steep learning curve to the game, and I may cover other aspects if people are interested to find out more. I had a lot of fun discovering what worked and what hasn't in the few months that I've been playing, and am super excited to explore other ways to earn in Zed. Feel free to leave comments if you have any questions or need more information!

Thank you for taking time to read my article. Tips are very much appreciated - but either way, I hope you enjoyed it and found it helpful! :)