Follow the sponsor
Real prize money has a name attached: a company, a foundation, a fund. If the purse has no clear source, treat the number as fiction until proven otherwise.
Read the fine print
Watch for prizes paid in credits, equity, or an amount split so many ways it rounds to nothing. A large headline number often hides a small real one.
Let us do it for you
Every listing on the index is checked against the source before you see it. That is the whole job. If a prize could not be verified, it never went up.
< read by a human · updated as things change >
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