[fyodor]

I'm just going to concentrate on the value of a Final ticket to make this simple.

There was $14,405,760 presently available to be divided up.
There were 1000 known qualifiers.
There were ~10,250 players with a monthly ticket.
There were an unknown number with weekly tickets which I am prepared to guestimate on the extreme high side as 60,000.
The chance of a monthly ticket holder qualifing was .125 x 10,250 = 1,281 more finalists
The chance of a weekly ticket holder qualifing was .03125 x 60,000 = 1,875 more finalists

1000+1281+1875=4156 shares in the $14,405,760 = $3,466.25 for a final ticket. (And remember - this is based on an estimate of 60,000 outstanding weekly ticket holders)

Even if PP unethically subtracted the original $5,000,000 in seed money due to the lack of exposure they expected (and I wouldn't blame them for this one bit) we still have a calculation of $2,263.17 per ticket.

I guess getting ripped off for $460 isn't as bad as it could be, but I was most definitely ripped off.