As said above, for such amount you don't really need escrow. Especially with current network congestion you would have to increase your budget just to pay transaction fees.
If people are not interested it is not for lack of escrow. For 0.001B, you don't need an escrow at all. I guess the lack of interest has more to do with the low prize money (1th Prize: 0.0006BTC & 2th Prize: 0.0004BTC) than anything else. Perhaps it is also a bit complex for such a small prize. Price prediction contests where you just have to say a number are usually more popular.
Wouldn't say that prize is low, I think it's ok. Bitcointalk members likes freebies, but maybe this one didn't got much attention because people are more interested in contests offered by most popular casinos.