Overall scope of scholar effect in Splinterlands

Important disclaimers
Before jumping into the data, a few things need to be made clear:

1. This dataset includes only the top 50 Splinterlands accounts.
   It is not meant to represent the entire player base, only the very top of the leaderboard.

2. Some accounts earn significantly more SPS due to tournaments.
   This inflates their monthly SPS compared to players who focus only on ranked play.

3. The first chart covers two seasons (roughly 30 days of activity).

4. “DNK” means “Do Not Know.” In these cases, I don’t know who is piloting the account. Scholars often rotate between accounts, which makes tracking difficult.

5. Average SPS per win is approximate.
   There may be small discrepancies, but the numbers were cross-checked with multiple scholars and account owners and are directionally accurate.

6. The 30-day range was estimated by doubling the previous season leaderboard. This means the numbers can be off by 10–20%, especially because of energy from gift boxes.So this is not perfect, but it is close enough to reveal the trend.

What could we, as a community, do?

Based on this data, here are some ideas worth discussing:

*Limit SPS from liquidity bot farming
For example:

Only the first 7 wins per day against liquidity bots would generate SPS

Any additional wins against bots would either:

Not generate SPS, or have the SPS burned

This would greatly reduce pure bot-farm exploitation while still allowing some improved matchmaking.

*Limit how many accounts a scholar can pilot
For example:

Maximum 3 accounts per scholar

With the option to reduce this to 2 later if needed

*Add transparency around account control

Introduce a mandatory tag such as:

“Piloted by: Scholar”

This would make it clear whether an account is owned and played by who.

*Revisit the rating system

The current system clearly has weaknesses in this environment.
If anyone has good ideas on how rating, matchmaking, or SPS distribution could be improved, I’d genuinely like to hear them.

The goal here is not to attack anyone — it’s to make Splinterlands fairer, more transparent, and more sustainable for everyone playing and investing in the game.

In details:

If some data is wrong, I apologize in advance

In conclusion, we can see that around 350 000 SPS per season goes to scholars in Champ top 50.
*it has come to my attention that one scholar is automatically paid with stables so the SPS never gets sold, and this diminishes the number to 320 000.

How to check it yourself?

You can easily verify a player’s SPS activity using the official Splinterlands API.

*. View SPS payment history
Enter the player’s in-game name (IGN) in the username field to see their most recent SPS transactions. This is how many scholars are paid.

api.splinterlands.com/players/balance_history?username=USERNAME&token_type=SPS&limit=200

*. Check active SPS delegations
This endpoint shows whether the player is currently delegating SPS to another account.
Just replace USERNAME with the player’s IGN.

https://api.splinterlands.com/players/reward_delegations?username=USERNAME

@azircon