A better question might be: why do you, as a casual (but still competitive) player, care if the overall purse is $16 less?

Here's some math:

16 players
$20 entry

Total purse: $320
Minus: $16 for IFPA

Total available purse for payouts: $304

Top 4 paid - 40%, 30%, 20%, 10% (or, you know, whatever breakdown you want)

1st - $122
2nd - $91
3rd - $61
4th - $30

I just don't understand how that changes someone's calculus.

I understand the principal, I just think it's a made up construct.

You're right on the math, but maybe this will be a nice correction and that weeklies shouldn't be for $5. Or report monthly and the fee goes down. Or just have weeklies for fun and larger tournaments with increased entry fees to offset the proportion of the pot.

There's a lot of ways to slice this, but I don't see how the "$1 per player" is anything to get principled about with so many options.

I'm sorry, what? Where's the trap?

I have no words.

Wish you the best and hope you can still enjoy competitive pinball when the IFPA totally ruins it next year.

Because people love to argue!!

Keyboard rage!!

Destroying pinball!!

$1!!!!

THIS 100%. It's been said a million times. This is what is going to happen. And it will be fine. The world will turn, we'll all play pinball, and we'll all be ranked. It's gonna be great.

No one is saying don't play pinball. They're saying "don't play pinball for WPPRs".

You don't have to be interested in growing the "business" of pinball (although I disagree that's whats going on here).

Play. Host tournaments. By all means, grow your local scene.

I am going to keep quoting this stuff.

You litereally don't have to ask people for a dollar. Just don't pay out 100% (not uncommon!)

You're right, I apologize - I realized that after re-reading. In those cases I think venue sponsorship of a very modest fee is the best way to keep free events WPPR eligible.

Please reiterate. All ears.

As someone who runs just these types of events in a hot player base area I must say that it is a balancing act, and very difficult to monitor. Obviously I tell people about the tourney and word spreads and things fill up. Sometimes it’s all people I know, sometimes it’s not. Last year I had three people randomly reach out to me via event website who were from another country and who came to compete.

It is a word of mouth thing in a large way, and I’m not sure there’s a way around that without completely restricting these types of events.

I’ve tried doing no sign ups, but the problem you run into there is - not enough people show up because they can’t be guaranteed a spot.

I realize I’m not offering a solution here - just a viewpoint from someone on this side of things.

It was really cool they came, shared my games and had a good time.

I don’t believe the $1 will affect anything around here - it’ll just come out of the prize pool from entries.

For the small stakes, larger weekly, the bar owner has decided to pay that out of pocket due to the increase in revenue.