RDR2 Money Guide: How to Get Rich in Story Mode

In Red Dead Redemption 2, money doesn’t grow on trees, and there’s no cheat for an endless supply. But a few methods pay far better than the rest: gold bars from treasure hunts, loot sold to a fence, bounties and hunting. Here’s how to fill Arthur Morgan’s pockets, chapter by chapter, without burning your evenings.

Main missions are still your top source of income

It’s the least exciting tip, but it’s the right one: Dutch’s gang is always chasing a payday, and the story hands you plenty of cash. Early Chapter 2 missions like An American Pastoral Scene and Pouring Forth Oil already net around $500 combined, and each chapter’s big jobs (robberies, train heists) pay a whole lot more. PowerPyx puts the total at $20,000 by the time you wrap the story, enough to chase 100% without pinching pennies.

A pro habit during those missions: loot everything. Drawers, cupboards, bodies: whatever’s lying around the houses you hit can be sold, and that’s often where the real money is.

Gold bars: the real story mode jackpot

A gold bar is worth $500, making it one of the most profitable items in the game and the best source of cash outside of missions. The only catch: it’s stolen goods, so only a fence will buy it. Treasure hunts hold most of them, and they all work the same way: a hand-drawn map leads you to a spot where the next map is hidden, all the way to the final stash.

Jack Hall Gang is the perfect place to start. The first map comes from Maximo, a treasure hunter hanging around near Flatneck Station, who sells it to you for $10 (or $5 if you turn him down the first time). The final treasure sits on a small island in the middle of O’Creagh’s Run. If Maximo is gone, a fence sells the map too.

Landmarks of Riches is the most lucrative hunt open to everyone: six bars, or $3,000, with no prerequisites from Chapter 2 on and a final stash at the Giant Sundial on Mount Shann. A fun bit of history: it wasn’t in the game at launch in 2018. It arrived with the PC version on November 5, 2019, alongside The Elemental Trail, three bounty hunter missions and two Del Lobos gang hideouts at Gaptooth Breach and Solomon’s Folly, before making its way to PS4 and Xbox One.

Treasure of the Dead is the odd one out: exclusive to the Special and Ultimate editions and certain pre-order bonuses, including the PC one, it’s worth five bars. And The Elemental Trail can only be played in the epilogue, since it runs through New Austin: just one bar, but you also get the Crow Beak trinket, which boosts ammo picked up by 10%.

Three gold bar stashes, no treasure map needed

You won’t need a map for these three, which add six bars, or $3,000:

• The Strange Statues. A cave painting near Window Rock puts you on the trail of a cave northeast of Bacchus Station. Inside, seven statues each hold up a different number of fingers: press the buttons on the ones showing a prime number (2, 3, 5 and 7). The center pedestal opens to reveal three gold bars.
• The Granite Pass train wreck. The wreckage of a derailed train hides two gold bars.
• The Limpany sheriff’s office. In this abandoned, burned-out town not far from Flatneck Station, a lockbox tucked under the sheriff’s desk holds a single bar. That lockbox became legendary at launch: a glitch let you refill it with 30 gold bars, worth $15,000 per run. According to RDR2.org, Rockstar patched it on November 27, 2018, a month after release.

All told, by our count and not including the special editions or a few stray bars, that’s 22 gold bars, or $11,000, waiting to be dug up. Keep in mind that a bar donated to the camp ledger helps the gang, but no longer puts a dime in your own pocket.

The fence: your best friend for unloading loot

Pocket watches, rings, earrings: every enemy you take down and every house you hit leaves behind valuables that the general store pays less for. The fence pays better, and it’s the only buyer for gold bars. There are four: Emerald Ranch (Seamus, introduced in the mission Pouring Forth Oil), Rhodes, Saint Denis and Van Horn. Only the Emerald Ranch fence buys stolen wagons taken off the nearby roads.

Pick up the Lock Breaker there as soon as you can. It’s the tool that cracks stagecoach locks, and without it you can’t open the strongbox in the back. For safes, you’ll need dynamite. Bandit camps, easy to spot by their smoke, almost always hide a loot chest on top of whatever their occupants are carrying.

Bounties: bring them back alive if you can

Bounty posters unlock after the side mission Good, Honest Snake Oil, which starts at the Valentine sheriff’s office. From then on, every poster in a sheriff’s office offers a target. The golden rule: a bounty brought in alive always pays more, even when the poster says “dead or alive.” That makes the lasso your best weapon. Expect around a hundred dollars per contract: not enough to retire on, but a nice side income between missions.

Freelance robberies (stores, stagecoaches, trains, isolated homesteads) pay too, but they also drive up the bounty on your head. Once you factor in the bounty hunters on your tail and the fine you’ll have to pay, the math quickly works against you. Save them for towns you don’t plan on visiting again.

Hunting and fishing: clean money

It’s the slowest method, but the most honest one, and it fits the spirit of the game perfectly. Butchers and trappers buy carcasses and pelts based on their quality: poor, good or perfect. To land top-tier quality, go for headshots, ideally with a bow: that does the least damage to the carcass. Bring it in fast, though: the carcass rots, and its value goes with it.

When it comes to gambling, poker (unlocked after Who is Not Without Sin) and Five Finger Fillet, a knife game of skill, can tide you over. But they’re never a real strategy: they’re slow, and your luck always runs out eventually.

Money-making methods compared

The epilogue trap: spend it before Chapter 6 ends

This is the mistake that burns the most players. When the story shifts to John Marston, Arthur’s cash doesn’t come with him: based on countless community reports, John starts the epilogue with $11.16. His satchel and journal carry over, but what happens to unsold gold bars is still debated, and a transfer trick involving the Aberdeen pig farm makes the rounds with no guarantee it works. The safest advice: sell everything and spend it before the end of Chapter 6 (fence recipes, outfits, weapons, camp upgrades). John gets back on his feet quickly, and the end of the story refills the coffers handsomely.

Longtime Rockstar fans will recognize the philosophy: just like in GTA 5, where the real story mode fortune comes from the stock market and Lester’s assassinations, the bulk of your bankroll comes from scripted scores, and side activities just fill in the gaps. For cheats, check out our list of RDR2 cheat codes (spoiler: the only money cheat gives you $500 and disables saving). And over in the multiplayer side, Red Dead Online, gold bars became a separate currency that can also be bought with real money.

Still on the fence about diving in? Our feature RDR2 or GTA 5 while you wait for GTA 6 settles the debate, and our GTA VI release date page has everything on November 19.