Split the pot

What splitting the pot means

To split the pot is to divide a contest's prize money among more than one winner. In a traditional survivor pool it usually happens one of two ways. Either the season ends with several entrants still alive and the rules divide the pot among them, or the last few survivors agree to share it rather than keep risking elimination for the whole thing. Card players call the second kind a chop.

A split can be even or weighted. Even splits are common in office pools because they are simple. Weighted splits pay more to whoever finished higher, which rewards the better result instead of just the survival.

An example

A hypothetical pool holds $3,000 with three entrants still alive in week fifteen. Nobody wants to lose everything on one upset, so they agree to an even split of $1,000 each and stop picking. Had one of them held the only remaining elite team, the other two might have offered a larger share to close the pool out.

How Speed Survivor is different

In Speed Survivor the split is built in and settled by rank, not by negotiation. When the game ends, the entrants still standing are ranked by points and the prize pool is paid down a ladder of payout tiers shown on the contest page before you enter. First place takes the largest share, then second, then third, then a wider band of smaller cashes, and ties split the combined prizes for the positions they occupy. The pool is funded by the entries, held by a third-party custodian, and Speed Labs may add to it. It all settles the same night; the recaps show real examples. How it works has the full contest.