I looked into the golf rules with fiat books. All would have paid the player in full. The only reduction occurs in the tied players for 5th. Even if unique, at least DirectBet puts up rules so that no future problems occur.
edit- One of the guys at peepsplace just wrote this:
$5footlong
And the split would be equivalent to a racetrack deadheat.
If you bet 1000 to win 1800 and you have a 2 way split you don't win 900. You take the total bet 2800 and chop that in half. Therefore you get a total payout of 1400 minus your 1000 wager so you profit 400.
if you bet a top 20 finish this week and had one of the guys that finished tied for 15th-23rd it gets really interesting. 9 people get paid for 6 spots. The formula (works for any tie scenario) is A/(x/y).
A= total bet (meaning if you bet 1000 to win/clear 1800, A would be 2800 the total ticket)
X= number of tied players (this case 9)
y= number of places to be paid at level of tied outcome (in this case 6 being that 15th on down were tied so 15,16,17,18,19,20 is a total of 6 places to be paid.)
So using this example you have 2800/(9/6) which breaks down to 2800/1.5 = 1866.67 is the total amount paid. So subtract the 1000 (original bet) and you make a profit of 866.67 in this case.
Hope this helps with some of the confusion on deadheat/tie rules