Arm Wrestling

John Marston arm-wrestles with a worker near an oil derrick.

Arm Wrestling is an activity in Red Dead Redemption that involves the player pitting their strength as John Marston against an NPC to pin their hand to a table. In single-player, the player may arm wrestle for a sum of Money that may be bet on. If the player wins, he gets the money plus the NPC's money. If the player loses however, they will lose the money they bet.

It is impossible to play this in multiplayer.

Note to JP and Asia region PS3 owners: O/X button issues prevent completion of the arm wrestling activity in the US Version of the game. The X button acts as both the PUSH and QUIT button so winning is impossible. This bug will prevent the player from obtaining the second scrap of the U.S. Army Outfit. Rockstar promises that they are looking into this and that a future patch is on the way.

Tips and Tricks

• Closely watch the opponent's face. If the opponent is struggling and putting a lot of force behind their arm the player's best bet is to defend by holding X(PS3) or A(Xbox 360).

• Whenever the strength bar (the green bar on the left-hand side) is completely filled up, start hitting the A/X button. When it's half-way down, stop, and start defending to regain strength.

• When the player is close to winning, and almost has the opponent's arm down to the table, a special move unlocks. Hit X (Xbox 360) or Square (PS3) when it appears on-screen to smash the opponent's hand down to the table. The player's strength bar must be full to do this finishing move.

• For one of the U.S. Army Outfit scraps, the player will need to beat two NPC's in one sitting in the Pacific Union R.R. Camp to unlock the outfit scrap. The player will automatically stand up at the end of these two matches.