Shenmue III guide – How to have plenty of cash early on

Shenmue III is obviously not the first game in the series to have money, but it is the first that requires you to buy groceries regularly. And why not? Ryo’s always had a curfew, so why shouldn’t he need to eat too? I’m just glad they didn’t give him regular bowel movements. So, you’re going to need cash, and you’re going to need it regularly. Much like previous games, there’s more than one way to do this. If you’re roleplaying and want to be super honest, you can get a job. But if you’re like me, you don’t have time for honesty. Here’s how you make some serious bank with minimal effort in Bailu Village.

The angel and the gambler

Now, as you’re almost certainly aware, Shenmue III has gambling. There are a fair amount of options in Bailu for making bets, but one is just simpler than the others. In front of Tao’s store is a fenced-off section filled with gambling booths that require tokens. You might be more inclined to try your luck by betting with money instead of tokens further into the village, but the rewards are really quite small and not worth your time.

Roll on the dice, take a spin on the wheel. Out of your hands now, so how does it feel?

When gambling for tokens, though, the amount you can make increases drastically. Now, the max bet you can make here is 1500 tokens, so you’re going to want to have at least that many when you get started. The place you’re gonna want to go is the dice booth opposite the turtle races. I like this booth because it’s quick and has really good odds. All you want to do is stand in front of the booth and then save.

Afterward, simply place a 1500 token bet by pressing up on the betting screen, and then get going. You need to roll a higher number than the bookie in order to win. If you’re successful, you’ll net 3000 tokens. If not, just reload your save and try again until you do. There isn’t any minimum you need to worry about hitting here, but the more the better, so do what thou wilt.

Pawn stars: Shenmue edition

Once you have yourself a big stack of tokens, you might be wondering what you’re supposed to do with them. Go to the village center and move past the pumpkin patch in order to get to Panda Garden. As soon as you enter this area, you’ll have a pawn shop on your right and a prize center on your left. What you want to do is visit the prize center and spend however many tokens you want on prizes. Just make sure to leave yourself 1500 so you can bet more the next time.

If you talk to a certain old lady in the village, she offers to put in a word for you with Meimei here. I’ve got a dad-murderer to catch, lady, I don’t have time to make shopkeepers uncomfortable.

You can also exchange capsule sets here, which can net you some combat scrolls that’ll come in handy.

I like to exchange my tokens for multiple crystals that cost 2750. These are worth about 250 Yuan. Once you’ve got some on you, simply exit and go to the pawn shop. You can then sell any of your prizes there, which can easily net you over 1000 Yuan per visit. And considering how little time it takes to win big at dice, this is a really easy way to get together some serious scratch.

Using this, you’ll likely never have any money problems early on, which will come in handy if you want to buy shirts, scrolls, or massively stock up on food. Do you have any other money tips for Shenmue III? If so, feel free to leave them in the comments.