Payouts are harder than they look

Payouts aren’t just math—they’re policy, exceptions, and trust. Software that treats them as a simple spreadsheet formula will break when reality shows up. League Night treats payouts as a first-class system because they determine who gets paid and whether players trust the results.

Context / Problem

On paper, payouts seem simple: collect money, sort scores, pay the top finishers. In practice, that’s where most league-night chaos lives.

Payouts vary by division, pool, turnout, ties, ace pots, and optional buy-ins. They change week to week, and sometimes mid-night. Software that assumes “the payout structure is fixed” fails when reality shows up.

Tradeoffs / Constraints

Spreadsheets are flexible until they’re not. They rely on manual updates, hide logic in formulas, are easy to misread under pressure, and don’t explain why a payout is what it is. That’s fine when you’re calm; it’s not fine when five players are waiting and daylight is fading.

Why this matters

A payout system has to be transparent, explainable, and predictable. If players don’t trust the math, the night slows down, even if the numbers are correct. League Night prioritizes clarity over cleverness.

Instead of a single “payout calculation,” League Night models entries, pools, divisions, distributions, and rollovers. Each piece is explicit, making it easier to reason about, easier to audit, and harder to accidentally break. It’s more work to build—but far less work to run.