My team does a season-long jackpot. You open(split or not) you pay a nickel. You double, everybody else pays a dime. You throw a three-bagger, everybody else pays a quarter. You continue the strike string and everybody else pays a quarter per strike. You get hung and you pay a dollar. You can save yourself from hanging if it's a split and you convert. My team has bowlers who are easily capable of stringing strikes, even our low average(170) bowler who is one of the no-thumbers who is prone to missing a spare on the right side. We almost always wind up putting in $4-$8 per man per night. Usually we pay our team entry for the state tourney out of this fund($60-$70 per man) and sometimes the city tourney also. At the end of the season the remainder is divided equally among the regulars, and we usually get back $100 to $$150 each. The occassional sub doesn't contribute to this prize fund so they get nothing back, but in the event of a roster change mid-season, the pay-out is pro-rated on amount of games bowled/contribution. Works pretty well for us, and we are always a little surprised at how much we get back from our personal prize fund, as well as league money won. We won the league last year, won the first half this year, and are currently in 2nd for the second half. All of our guys are pretty competitive, not afraid to have a few beers(except me, I gave it up), and joke around and trash-talk amongst ourselves. We usually match our low-handicap(50-55) against teams with anywhere from 125-pins to 250+ pins. This forces us to really buckle down and make the spares to try to catch up before we get to ninth frame. All in all, it is a bonus to our regular league prize money. Our dues are $15 per man, of which $8.20 is lineage and .55 cents goes to secretary/treasurer... so it is not a BIG money league, in my opinion.
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r.k.wolfe