What we learned at our first Pickle Money Ball event
Katie Neils competes at the Pickle Money Ball event in Daytona Beach. Courtesy photo, Bull Stock Media/Pickle Money Ball
The Kitchen Team was on-site at this week’s Pickle Money Ball Super Series event in Daytona Beach, Florida, where a total of $250,000 was up for grabs across all amateur divisions.
It was the fourth Pickle Money Ball event of 2026 — the organization was founded earlier this year and hosted its debut event in the spring.
The prior events were in Phoenix, Dallas and Jacksonville, Florida.
Below are a few of our observations from this week’s tournament and Pickle Money Ball as a whole after seeing one of their events up close.
Interested in playing a Pickle Money Ball event?
Find the full schedule and sign up here — use code “KITCHEN” for 5% off your registration!
Takeaway No. 1: The events are run by professionals
Even though Pickle Money Ball is relatively new to hosting pickleball tournaments, they’ve teamed up with experienced tournament operators to make sure the player experience is top notch.
Pickleball Is Great, led by owner Mike Hoxie, specializes in running tournaments for various organizations. They have been operating the Pickle Money Ball tournaments behind the scenes all year, and have taken player feedback from the first few events to make improvements throughout 2026.
The format for each event is round robin/pool play, followed by a single-elimination bracket. Every player/team advances to bracket play, and the round robin results are used for seeding. This guarantees players a significant number of games, which everybody we talked to said they liked.
Even though there was on-and-off rain the first two days of the event, the tournament still ran smoothly thanks to several covered courts at the Pictona facility where this week’s event was held. Every Pickle Money Ball tournament so far has been held at large, premium facilities, which makes things much smoother from an operations standpoint.
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There were several other perks that helped elevate the player experience:
- Most matches had a USA Pickleball ref on court — that’s extremely important when there’s significant money on the line.
- A professional photographer roamed the courts throughout the week taking photos of almost every single player in the field. Players were given a link where they could simply search their name and find every photo that was taken of them. This was a great perk and we saw a lot of players checking out their photos. And it’s free.
- Pickle Money Ball live streamed several Championship Court matches on Saturday and Sunday — and had expert commentators calling those matches. Playing on Championship Court with the cameras on is normally reserved for pro players, but Pickle Money Ball is committed to bringing that experience to the amateur game.
Takeaway No. 2: Players are cashing in on a great opportunity
To date Pickle Money Ball has paid out more than $1 million in prize money in just three events, and about 700 players total have earned prize money.
Average earnings per player: $1,386.
And more than 20 players have earned $5,000 or more. Find the full Pickle Money Ball prize money leaderboard here.
A lot of the players we talked to this weekend made more money than what their entry fee cost, thanks to the fact that every division paid out to the Top 8 finishers in this week’s event. The bigger regional events pay out to the Top 16 finishers.
“It’s nice because you don’t have to always medal to be in the money,” said Carolina Lopez Ascarate, who won the top division in age 50+ mixed doubles. She and her partner earned $3,000 for the win. “You can get your entry fee back or make a little bit by placing 6th or 7th, and then when you do have a really good day you get rewarded for it with a bigger payout.”
And it’s not just the higher-level players who are able to earn money. Pickle Money Ball has the same payouts for the 3.5 and under division all the way up to the 5.0+ division. That’s a huge change from traditional pickleball tournaments, which usually just give medals to the winners in the lower divisions.
“It doesn’t feel real right now, but when that check hits the bank account it’s gonna feel real nice,” said Gammy Velazquez, who took the title in mixed doubles 4.49 and under alongside 16-year-old Knightley Houston. They also earned $3,000 for the win. “That’s a crazy amount of money to win, especially for us not being some pros or whatnot. It’s really cool for us.”
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Takeaway No. 3: Pickle Money Ball is seeing more and more repeat players
Given the unique nature of being able to earn significant money as an amateur player, Pickle Money Ball is starting to gain a loyal fanbase of players from around the country (and some international players).
We talked to multiple players who had traveled from Puerto Rico to play in the event, as well as states like California, Arizona, Texas and Massachusetts.
Maya Roderick and Katie Neils, both from Arizona, had won the previous Pickle Money Ball event in Dallas, then parlayed their winnings from that event into this week’s tournament in Daytona Beach. They won again this week, and now they’re both in the Top 25 on the earnings leaderboard (Roderick had won $7,060 as of Saturday night, while Neils had won $4,570 as of Saturday night).
“I’ve really enjoyed the events and I like the format,” Neils said. “We get to play a lot of teams, so it’s not just one and done like some other tournaments.”
Both Roderick and Neils said they planned to play the next Pickle Money Ball event in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, next month, which has a $625,000 guaranteed total payout. The Top 4 finishers in each division this week get free entry into Fort Lauderdale, and we heard from several players who said they were going to play in that event.
The Pickle Money Ball Regional in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has a guaranteed total payout of $625,000.
Use code “KITCHEN” for 5% off your registration!
“This was my first Pickle Money Ball event and I loved it,” said Jeremiah Camino, who won the 4.9 and under men’s doubles division with his partner Kevin Truong. “They ran a good tournament and we had a lot of good games, so I’m definitely ready for the next one. I’m 100% playing in Fort Lauderdale.
