* Bowling - Money Leagues

By Michael Russell

If you enjoy the game of bowling and want to earn a few bucks playing it in the process, but not quite good enough to go pro, you may want to consider joining what is called a money league.

As a kid growing up, if you bowled in leagues, you bowled in non money leagues. Here, the bowlers bowled only for trophies and patches. This was a great way for a kid to get some experience competing against others and prepare him for bowling with the big boys.

In most states, once you reach the age of 18, you can then participate in what they call money leagues. These are leagues that also compete for trophies but also for a monetary prize that is paid out at the end of the year for certain achievements.

Unlike kids leagues, which are fairly inexpensive, money leagues can run you a pretty penny each week because the prize pool is actually made up of the money paid in each week. And since the bowling alley itself gets a portion of these fees, they can run pretty high if you want the money paid out at the end of the year to be an amount worth the bowlers participation.

The prizes vary greatly from league to league depending on the number of players and teams. A common league will pay prizes for first, second and third place finishes. They will also pay individual prizes for bowlers who had the high average, high series and high game for the year. These individual prizes are relatively small in comparison to the team prizes which are distributed evenly between all the bowlers on the team.

In addition to this, each team may have what they call individual pools. These are not sanctioned by the league itself but are not disallowed either. These individual pools are set up to make the night a little more interesting. Some examples of individual pools are below.

One common pool that a team will set up each night is what they call the "beer frame". In the old days, the loser of the beer frame would buy the other members a beer. Some still practice this but many teams now put a certain amount of money into a pot for each beer frame. The loser of the beer frame puts a certain amount of money into the kitty. This money is then distributed to the whole team at the end of the year. The loser is the bowler who shoots the lowest score for the frame. If all bowlers shoot the same score that frame, then the beer frame is extended to the next frame until there is a loser.

Another team prize pool that is set up is paying the team member who has the highest game for that game and finally the highest series for the night. Each member may pay a dollar to the person who holds these nightly records.

There are of course variations of these and many other things that each team comes up with to make the night more interesting.

Bowling in a money league can cost you a pretty penny but it can also make you quite rich by the end of the year with prizes being in the thousands of dollars. So if you have a good paying job or a big trust fund, you may want to think about joining a money league, even if you don't need the money.

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