Prize money from tournaments cleared out my credit card debt and paid for 6 months of rent, so I guess it’s got that going for it…which is nice.
I like tournaments that pay out reasonably well because without those payouts I could probably not afford to fly to as many events as I have in the last year or two. With that said, my primary concern is competing with the best players possible and having a good time with fun people. It just so happens that that seems to happen primarily at the big tournaments that also have significant prizes.
I definitely don’t think money drives anyone to play tourneys; even Keith and Jorian couldn’t win enough to live off of pinball winnings in a hypothetical world where they could travel to every event so I don’t think anyone has to worry about that becoming a driving force for players any time soon. On the other hand…is there really anything bad about it happening if it does? Dumb jerkfaces at tournaments will be dumb jerkfaces like they always have been, but my experiences with actually good players (i.e. the ones who qualify at every circuit event they attend) have pretty much always been really positive. I guess I just don’t see it being an issue but maybe I’m wearing rose-tinted glasses.
WPPR points are great IMO. They provide a persistent challenge between events and actually in a way make me feel better when I lose a tourney because I know that another one worth good points will probably be just around the corner. I’ve always been a big “leaderboard” addict (pretty much all of the games I play are leaderboard-centric) so maybe that’s why I feel that WPPRs are so awesome. I’ve also seen a lot of newer local players get really excited about them, so there’s that too. Some of those newer players that got into tourneys partially through WPPRs are now thinking about going to the “big ones” like PAPA/Pinburgh, INDISC, CAX, etc which is pretty cool to me.
Honestly I think about this sometiems when choosing events. And unfortunately, a number of organizers have tainted the pot such that people should be asking these questions.
There a bunch of people who run tournaments, who are terrible at it. These days there are a lot to choose from, and myself, and I think a lot of people go to the events where the competition is the most fun, challenging and engaging. And don’t attend the rest.
BUT, these questions about cash are also important to me and can be a deciding factor - I want to know these things NOT for how much might I get paid, but to know where the money is going.
A lot of people give to pinball, to the community and the hobby with their time/money etc… And some people extract that money in ways I don’t agree with.
If you are charging X$ for your event or for entries, and pay out Y, or even 0, I want to know where the difference is going. Sometimes, that is going right into someone’s personal pocket.
With enough quality tournaments out there, I steer clear of the ones where I’m paying an organizer’s rent.
I’m ok with it, generally, but I think it should also be open information if that’s happening. If you’re trying to keep it secret, it’s likely because you know people wouldn’t be happy with the amount.
If you play in a poker tourney at a casino, they are very clear about how much is payed out, how much is going to the dealers, etc.
PPE used to take way too much of the entry fees. In the first couple of years of the show, players came from all over the world. Once word got out (low payouts), players stopped traveling to the show. Some of us locals even stopped attending. You can see this by looking at the results of those tournaments on the IFPA website. Lots of outsiders in the early years, practically none later.
Playing the game is the root of the hobby (which many seem to forget these days). It’s okay to cover your expenses and even make a small profit, but gouging the players is BS.
I can vouch for this as a traveler who attended this show once and then didn’t the next year because of how much the organizers were pocketing. I was also coming from Portland, where at the time every one of the tournaments paid out 100%. It was part of the culture to not profit from organizing events (or pinball mapping websites!).
I absolutely agree that it’s appropriate to be clear about how much players can expect in payouts (whether in dollars or percentage of entry fees). What I don’t get is why what happens to the remainder of the money is anyone’s business other than the people putting on the event.
Lets say you’re running an event at a show. The show wants some money from the pot, since the show is providing the space for the tourney. And lets say the tourney organizer is keeping some of the pot to offset their costs or a fee or whatever.
Now , if there is a difference of $500 between money in and payout, do you think players deserve to know what fraction goes to the show and what to the organizer? $400/$100 and $100/$400 would be very different scenarios, and as a player I would like to know which of those it was.
To add to johnnyfive’s reply above, I think it’s the player’s business if an organizer that is taking a profit from an event is also participating in the event.
Not really. From my perspective as a player, $500 out of the pot is $500 out of the pot. How it gets split up once it’s gone doesn’t affect my experience in the tournament.
If we’re talking a small amount of money for entry, then I don’t really care.
But when we are talking the big HERB style tournaments that cost $3.33 a game, I kinda think I deserve to know where its going. . Especially when most people say 100% goes to the pot. It just always seems sketchy when people have such a huge stack of money left over after paying out and claim 100% payout.
Personally, I don’t take money from my tournaments other than trophy fees, but all of my events have been 100% for charity (minus trophy fees). I don’t think they should take money from the tournament pot but that wouldn’t stop me from going to a tournament if it is stated ahead of time.
Every tournament I’ve organized has either been 100% to charity or 100% paid back as cash prizes and trophies. It has never even occurred to me to pay myself out of the entry fees as an organizer / tournament director. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with doing so, but I would personally feel better about those numbers being clear for anyone participating in the event. I have opted not to play in certain tournaments where I felt there was shady money business going on behind the scenes or tournament entries being used to support a failing show, etc. I’ve even privately asked some of those organizers about the money situation ahead of time and I’ve always been met with extremely defensive responses and numbers that didn’t add up properly. That’s been enough for me to decide not to support them.
Prior to getting involved in competitive pinball, my experience with organizing events was about 10-15 years of booking DIY gigs, both for my own bands on the road and for touring bands coming through Cleveland. It’s essentially an unwritten law in the “punk scene” that the promoter doesn’t take anything off the top for that kind of work and you’re just doing it as a labor of love or a favor to your friends’ bands, so that’s how my way of thinking was shaped over time. Furthermore, the amount of money at the door (or in the prize pool as the case may be) is generally such a small number that getting paid off the top wouldn’t even be significant enough to be considered “fair pay” for all the work that goes into it. More often than not, I was going out of pocket to promote a show and tossing a little extra on the top to make sure a band was covered if a show tanked. Thankfully I haven’t had to do that in pinball and it’s partly why I’ve felt hesitant to set any guaranteed payouts ahead of time, as losing money on doing fun work is a quick way to suck the fun out of it. Luckily our local player base isn’t cash hungry, so small payouts (or free tournaments) never leave anyone disappointed at the end of the day.
I can’t imagine that a lot of local monthlies are having money skimmed off the top - are they? I would guess that issue is only relevant to big budget shows.
It absolutely should be public information how much is being removed from the prize pool, if any. (Where that money is spent is pointless in my opinion…they don’t tell you the breakdown of where your event pass money is going). In poker, the house takes a fixed cut to cover expenses. That number is always disclosed, and the rest goes to the prize pool.
I have no idea why pinball wouldn’t do it the same way. (And with pinball it’s easy to do 100% payout on tournaments run in public venues…by charging people to play the games - which is how the person running the event gets “compesated”).
In poker they actually disclose two pots of money skimmed—one for the dealers, and another for the house—at many big-ticket tournaments. And it’s always made public before the tournament, as is the prize structure.
I don’t necessarily want to know where the money’s going ahead of time, but knowing that it’s been allocated in some way is a good thing.
Just a point of information and I am not sure about other places, but often the people running the tournaments will have no business interest in the actual location so they don’t get compensated since they may not own/operate machines or get any revenue share from the location.
I think that people’s time is valuable and should be recognized and treated as such.
Currently, organized pinball is dependent on an enormous amount of free labor. That’s largely by necessity since, as you say, there simply isn’t enough money in it to pay anyone what their time is worth. It’s awesome that there are so many people out there who love pinball so much that they’re willing and happy to do the work of growing the community for free! But that doesn’t mean it’s healthy or sustainable.
Even when there isn’t enough money available to pay people what their time is worth, modest stipends can be an appropriate and effective way of establishing a baseline recognition that as a culture, we value the labor that goes into keeping that culture going. Something like a standard % (10%? 20%?) off the top of the pot, regardless of size, to be distributed as the organizer sees fit among people who contributed to the event.
If we’re talking about some $5 local tournament, whatever. But in cases of multi-day events that people travel to and someone is going to be walking away with over $1000 in prize money? Absolutely, that person should be paid! It’s baffling to me that so many people seem to think they shouldn’t.
Some events require an entrance into a show - say $60/weekend on the low end. On top of that these events/shows pull anywhere from $2000 to $8000 out of the prize pool in a herb pump and dump type situation.
These tournaments are run by volunteers who are not getting paid. The games in the tournament are donated/volunteered for no money.
I guess I don’t see the need to support an event like that, where there are many other options.
But @cayle makes a great point - so should the volunteers. And to me, getting a $20 discount to bring a game to a show, for the show to use to make money, is a little silly. I’d feel better about doing it for free.
Or why can’t we just set the games up for 25 cents per play. Then the owners of the game can come away with a hundred bucks.
I remember Rosa doing this for Pinball at the Zoo a few years back. It was normal Herb style 3 for $10, but you had to pay for your game played. Owners who donated their game to the tournament bank got to keep the cashbox from the weekend to help cover their wear and tear from their games getting pounded for a weekend.