Anyone else following this?

[Madison]

I suck at bowling I throw the ball as hard as I can to see what speed I get on the screen

And what's the highest speed you've hit? What weight ball?

I don't recall next time I go I'll be sure to tell ya!

So how do you make money bowling? small tournerys state tourneys?

The Annual State Tournament doesn't really pay out all that much. Most of what I shoot in are just called "opens". A center will hold a scratch tourney and guarantee say $5,000 for first based on X number of entries, with guaranteed payouts on down the line of where you finish. Anyone in the world who pays the fees can compete in it, so the turnout is usually pretty good, even though there are tournaments like that just about every weekend.

You also have something called a "high pot" where the highest score each game gets 1/3rd of whatever the total pot is worth. Usually costs around $10 to enter, and that covers all games. Say for example 30 people get into the high pot. The person with the highest score each game gets $100.

Brackets are where the real money is at though. Typically you start with 8 bowlers, each paying $5 to enter. You do it like any other bracket. Random draw, 1 on 1 matches the first game and the 4 winners advance. The 4 winners shoot 1 on 1 and the winners advance to the final two, and they bowl for the money. First in the bracket is $25, and second takes $10. They will run as many brackets as they get signups for. (Oh, and yes, there's $5 missing from the payout. 8 bowlers at $5 is $40, but whoever is running the tournament pockets $5 per bracket for costs. Stinks, but it is what it is).

Here's one I shot a couple of weeks ago. This was what's called an 8 game marathon (yes, 8 games), and I shot well. Not great or spectacular or anything, but reasonable. Anyway, I spent $249 on the entry fee, $40 on the high pot, and $300 in brackets (60 of them), $16 for food and soda, and roughly $5 in gas. Total spent: $610.

I wound up 7th in the tourney which paid $380, won 1 high pot for $90, I won 26 brackets which pays $650, and I finished second in 17 more brackets for another $170. Total won: $1,290.

Total profit: $680

Not super high stakes or anything, but not bad for 4 hours of work, and like I said earlier, I didn't really shoot that great. Just shot pretty good.