Why not earn tickets when there is no tournament, then you can go all out, and the pay to winners have it fun enough to keep playing. A tiny bit of extra difficult to keep it fun.

   I know the answer is money... People buy gold tickets, but the truth is it doesnt really work that much.

    See, its too much of a grind for only a few golden tickets, so the solution is just get into next bracket and dont grind. If you let people have it easy enough, they grind more, and maybe spend. But things have to be rewarding enough to spend. Besides buy tickets against pay to win whales. 

    The only true reason to buy golden tickets is having enough fun and easy enough time anyway to spend a bit for extra tickets. 

    There are people who you say boo, and they give cash, the. The ones you make things difficult, and they give cash, the others want you to be competant enouugh to earn their stuff.