Prize funds in chess seem to have settled at US$1 million or US$2 million for a world championship match, US$500,000 for a Candidates tournament, US$300,000 for the Sinquefield Cup, the Magnus Tour majors, or the World Cup, in recent times.
Incidentally, last year’s World Cup split $1.8 million among 206 entrants. And this year’s World Championship match paid out US$2.5 million. The non-Candidates record for the largest fund was the 2010 London Chess Classic which was worth US$650,000 for seven rounds of play. On the other hand, the non-Championship events that attracted sizeable purses were the 2014 and 2015 $1,000,000 Millionaire Chess Tournaments.
The 1979 Montreal Chess Tournament in which US$110,000 was distributed as prize money represented the first six-figure prize fund in history. Then world champion Anatoly Karpov and Mikhail Tal, a former champion, tied for first place. However, the largest chess prize ever given to an individual was at the 1992 match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia. It was worth US$5,000,000 with the winner getting US$3.35 million. Fischer won 10-5 with 15 draws. The match was billed as a World Championship though it was an unofficial rematch of Fischer-Spassky 1972 encounter.
Prize money has gotten better for chess over the years but the game is not a huge money sport. Sports like baseball, football and tennis, to name a few examples, make more money. In 1972 Fischer won US$156,250 in contrast to Carl Yastrzemski, outfielder, the best paid baseball player, who earned $167,000.
