[phyrrus9]

Alright, straight to the point.

Feel confident in your programming skill?
Want a chance to win some $ with it?

If you can answer yes to either of those questions, then this is the thread for you.

I want to host a programming competition, which would work like this:
$10 entry fee
25 problems (chosen from old ACM competitions, codejam, and some from me)
1 hour to complete
Payouts work like this:
1st: 50% of entry fees
2nd: 25% of entry fees
3rd: 10% of entry fees

Now, some of you will ask: what happens to the remaining 15% of the money?
Well, I would like to run future competitions, maybe 1 a week, and the leftover money from each one would be rolled over into the next one. Take this scenario

contest 1:
10 people sign up and compete
total $100 collected
winners take
1st: $50
2nd: $25
3rd: $10

then contest 2:
the top 5 from previous competition are allowed to compete (top half each time)
total $50 collected
$15 is added to pot from last competition
$75 total pot
1st: $37.50
2nd: $18.75
3rd: $0 (eliminate one place each time)

contest 3:
the top 3 are allowed to compete (rounded up)
total $30 is collected
$11.25 is added from last competition
1st: $20.63
2nd: $0

So, if you won all 3 contests, you would spend $30 in fees, but win a total of $108.10, which means, you came out +$78.10. And that is a SMALL competition! Rounds will continue until there are only 3 players left to compete.

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Let's do a larger scenario (but still reasonable)

contest 1:
25 people
$250 collected
1st: $125
2nd: $62.50
3rd: $25
left: $37.50

contest 2:
13 people
$130 collected
$37.50 added
$167.50 total
1st: $83.75
2nd: $41.86
3rd: $16.75<- this is where we start eliminating positions
left: $25.14

contest 3:
6 people (rounded down here for simplicity)
$60 collected
$25.14 added
$85.14 total
1st: $42.57
2nd: $21.29
left: $21.28

contest 4:
3 people (final round)
$30 collected
$21.28 added
$51.28 total
1st: $25.64
left: $25.64 (very likely donated to sinisterly)

So, if you won all 4 here, you would pay $40 in fees, but get $276.96 in winnings, for a $236.96 proffit gain (thats +592%)

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Now that you have seen the possible outcome, who wouldn't turn this down? The worst case scenario you never advance past round 1 and you're out $10.

The problem is 1. we need people 2. we need to gather problems (I would like to make this a community thing, as I would also like to compete fairly).

Who is on board?

[phyrrus9]

Untrue. I keep 0% of the winnings. Any leftover money would wind up being recycled back into contests, given to the 1st place winner, or donated to the site

[dopamine]

A community project to get Sinisterly known is a far better idea and does not need any money.

Why not put our heads together to develop a RAT or whatever.

[lux]

Nobody here will risk their money. And the payouts are pretty jack too. One person will take 1st every time I bet

A unit project would be a better idea.

[phyrrus9]

We could always run them for free. Same concept, I just figured the payout would give you all a bigger incentive to do it.

Who wants to do it for free?