Worked Example
A full settlement, using a real simulated 500-player season.
Setup
| Season pool | $10,000 |
| Players | 500 |
| Qualified | 380 (76%) |
| Ranked places | 19 (5% of 380) |
| Pro-rata pool | $8,500 (85%) |
| Rank pool | $1,500 (15%) |
| Payout floor | $1.00 |
Payouts
| Rank | Season points | Pro-rata | Rank prize | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | 99 | $101.13 | $422.80 | $523.93 |
| #2 | 91 | $93.71 | $211.40 | $305.11 |
| #5 | 77 | $80.72 | $84.56 | $165.28 |
| #10 | 63 | $67.73 | $42.28 | $110.01 |
| #19 | ~54 | ~$58 | ~$22 | ~$80 |
| #25 | 51 | $56.59 | — | $56.59 |
| #50 | 36 | $42.68 | — | $42.68 |
| #159 | 12 | $20.41 | — | $20.41 |
370 players paid immediately. 10 accrued to next season.
What This Shows
The winner earns about 26× the median qualified player — winning is worth real money.
But 380 of 500 players earn something, not 10. That is the pro-rata pool doing its job.
The cliff at the last ranked place is soft. #19 receives roughly $80, #20 roughly $58 — a meaningful step, not a collapse. An earlier design paid 30% across a fixed 10 places and produced an 87% drop at the cutoff, which was indefensible.
Rank prizes fall away smoothly, and below the ranked places the pro-rata share continues down the field in proportion to points.
Checking the Arithmetic
Player #25 has 51 season points.
rewardPoints = 51 + 10 = 61Σ rewardPoints across all 380 qualified ≈ 9,160share = 8,500 × 61 ÷ 9,160 = $56.59rank prize = $0 (outside 19 places)total = $56.59Every number in this table comes from running the shipped scoring code against a simulated field. The same code settles real seasons.