[popovitsj]

Can someone explain to me how money tournaments work?

I'm familiar with poker tournaments, which have a buy-in and a fee, e.g. $1 + $0.10, in which $0.10 is the fee or rake.

The $1 goes into the prize pool and is distributed among the winners of the tournament.

Are there any tournaments on BBO that have a structure similar like this?

I'm seeing a lot of "Monthly best player award" stuff, which seems pretty stupid and non-transparant tbh.

I don't understand most of the pay-out structures posted in tournament info's.

Am i correct in the assessment that most of the tournaments don't pay out anything at all?

And if so, why does anyone bother playing them?

[barmar]

Here are how the BBO-sponsored money tournaments work:

Robot Reward and Bingo Reward: The entries go into a pool. The house takes 20% of the pool (10% of the $5 Robot Reward). The pool is then distributed among the leaders: 33% to the winner, 22% to 2nd place, and so on until the pool is exhausted.

Robot Rebate and BBO Speedball Rebate: The entry is $1. If your matchpoint score is 55% or higher, you get $1.50 back.

There are also a number of private clubs that offer cash prizes. I don't think any of them have prize pools like you describe, but they do increase their prizes based on the number of entries.

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And if so, why does anyone bother playing them?

Because they enjoy playing bridge. Why do people play games in general?