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.