Hello CE-Beginners, 

this is your beginners guide on how to start making bank in Cartel Empire.

As I am a bit over 100 days and approx networth of half a billion and aiming for my Private Estate I want to make sure that you know how to make some cash for yourself and even tell you what makes sense to buy for yourself on this journey.

Jobs

First and probably the main income source for your first weeks will be your job. And here I only recommend doing 3 out of all jobs, the reasons will be explained.

 

Coca Paste Robbery

Approx 1 million CE$ per job. (Per Hour)

The Coca Paste Robbery gives you Coca Paste, a ressource used in making coke, which is widely used by all kind of players up to late game.

Without prestiging your skill in this job you gain around 0-20 coca paste.

Coca gives you one of the cheapest methods to get daily energy and one paste sells for around 40-60k depending on daily market prices.

And the worst thing that could happen is that you get hospitalized, nothing more.

 

Construction Robbery

Approx 1.5 million CE$ per job. (Per 1 and a half hour)

The Construction Robbery gives you all the Construction Materials that are needed to build any housing. From the small shack to the Private Estate.

A whopping 2000 nails, 1200 bricks, 750 Concrete and 300 Steel is needed to build the private estate, so there is always high demand on the construction materials but especially on the nails, thats why the nails cost between 160k-200k depending on the daily market prices. So if you hit 20 nails on the robbery that alone is 3m$.

Without prestiging your skill in this job you gain around 0-22 construction materials.

The downside of having so much earning potential is that you can be jailed, which would incapacitate you for hours unless you use a personal favour an item that costs between 500k-900k.

 

Agave Storehouse Robbery

Approx 200k CE$ per job. (Per half hour)

The Agave Storehouse Robbery gives you Agave which is needed in the alcohol still production building.

For each 5 Agave you can get any Alcohol that is in the game based on randomness.

Since alcohol does not use the same cooldown as cocaine and other drugs, you can use it the same time with coke which makes alcohol a great alternative if you want to get the daily maximum energy. Therefore alcohol is expensive which makes agave expensive and demanded as well. Agave sells for 65-80k per each and is sold very fast.

Same as with the coca paste robbery the worst thing that could happen is to get hospitalized.

 

Jobs Summary

I recommend specializing on one or two of those jobs in order to make good money, in the beginning you will fail a lot, but the higher your skill in that job gets the less often you will end up in hospital or jail, so it is worth to start doing them early and maybe even prestige them if you want to start over with bonuses.

My personal recommendation is the Coca Paste Robbery since it has big earning potential and also takes more time, giving you time to breath while not playing the game. And every time you have found (or the spare cash to buy) a personal favour to get out of jail to do the Construction Robbery.

This way you can start making millions of CE$ directly with level one.

 

Attacking for losses 

This is a fairly new method of making money but it can be, especially for very fresh beginners, a promising income source.

Since with one of the latest updates we received achievements, achievements give you points and those points can be used for passive traits (more job success rate, more stats etc). One of those achievements include winning in a defending fight, which makes you, the beginner, the perfect sidekick on achieving this. Therefore some players offer cash or items when you attack them on the purpose for you to lose the fight.

Some known players offering you payment on your losses against them are:

Jari [409]  offering 1 coke per attack.

(more players to be added later, if you want to be named here let me know).

While this is a good method on making early money or in an urgent situation I do not recommend doing this all the time, since your energy is also important for yourself in order to earn reputation, so while you can do this, I wouldn't recommend doing it for long term.

 

La Paz Market (Trading)

So there is some stuff that you can buy daily from the NPC stores and sell them for a quick buck in the item market such items are Bandages and Dog Food. For the bandages you can expect 250k-500k daily extra income if you buy all the 25 items from the store and sell them in the market. The reason for this is that those items are also needed (for personal use and or achievements) and when there is demand you can sell them.

Other than that you can obviously sell any items received from expeditions here to make some extra income, but dont expect big gains from expeditions until you hit potosi or higher. More info on expeditions in the CE wiki: Link

Casino

When I started CE I was doing all the chips in blackjack, which is also not a bad idea since blackjack and the wheel casino games are profitable.

Currently I do not recommend playing the slots or the lottery, but are... well a gamble... So if you want to gamble go for it, but profitwise I do not recommend it. (But it could still be fun lol)

Therefore you should be doing blackjack and wheel, but at least the daily wheel of fortune rolls.

But many do not know that Blackjack in CE is actually statistically profitable. The only thing you need is a strategy: Link

With a strategy like in the shown image you do no longer have to think what you should do but just follow the instructions, this way your odds on winning increase drastically making you in average win more often. In the beginning stick to a lower betting amount and raise over time, also a cool strategy that helped me a few times is to increase your bet every time you lose this is also called martingale strategy : Link.

 

Epilog

With these named things you should be able to make a good buck early and daily and even in late game. There are also other ways of making money but they usually require other stuff (like trading event items, attacking bounty targets, producing alcohol or coke etc) and therefore do not belong to this list/guide. 

So what should you do with all your hard earned money?
Well depends on what you want to do, but in the long term you should also aim for your private estate in order to be able to get 1200 intelligence in order to boost your battle stats. On your journey to there its really up to you, some cartels offer some free items where you can save some millions on your initial gear from there you can either buy coke for yourself to boost your reputation and attack count, or like i said save for the private estate in the long term.

If you have any questions or want to add things to this guide simply let me know. Also if this post helped you, liking it would be appreciated.

Updated for new Casino Games. 30. January 2025

Good guide, but disagree on the job section slightly. 

Coca paste and construction robbery crimes are going to land newbs in jail / hosp for extended periods of time, frequently, after a long wait for the job to be done and aren't a great introduction to the game as an experience. Fert can be very profitable, with much less risk.

Farm robbery would 100% be my personal number 1 choice for newbs who wish to make money early on.