Side action is what turns a squad into a day worth driving to. It is also six different money calculations happening at once on the same set of scores.
Written for tournament directors, bracket operators and bowling centers · last reviewed 2026-09-10
Side action is any optional pot played on scores that are already being bowled. Nobody throws an extra ball for it. The main event runs exactly as it would have, and alongside it sit a set of separate competitions that bowlers buy into individually.
For the bowler it is more ways to have something at stake. For the director it is additional revenue with no additional lane time, and the reason a squad fills. The cost is administrative: each format is its own entry list, its own pool and its own payout, all driven off the same scores, all due at the same time.
| Format | What it is | Extra games? | Admin load |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brackets | Head-to-head single elimination, usually eight bowlers over three games | No | High — builds, byes, refunds, per-game advancement |
| Side pots | Highest game or series in a pool takes the money | No | Low — one pool, one ranking |
| Reverse brackets | The same three games replayed in the opposite order | No | High — handled by the software |
| Eliminator | The lowest-scoring half of the field is cut each game | No | Medium — a cut to compute and publish every game |
| Mystery pot | The winning condition stays hidden until it is revealed | No | Low, but credibility depends on the draw |
| Blind doubles | Random pairs, combined scores | No | Medium — a draw, combined scoring, a split payout |
The backbone of side action. Eight bowlers, three rounds, one game per round, higher score advances. Bowlers commonly buy several at once, which is what makes brackets the largest single revenue line on most side-action cards and the heaviest thing on the desk.
Brackets are also the format with the most ways to go wrong: bracket counts that do not match entries sold, byes stacked into one sheet, over-buys discovered at payout time. See how bowling brackets work and byes in bowling brackets.
The simplest format there is: everyone in the pot, highest game or highest series wins. Often split into scratch and handicap pots, and often sold as high game, high series, or both.
Because a side pot has one pool and one ranking, it is the easiest thing to sell late and the easiest to administer. The judgement call is how many places pay: a pot with a hundred entries that pays one place wastes the field, and one that pays twenty places pays nobody enough to matter.
A reverse bracket replays the same three games in the opposite order — game three becomes game one, game one becomes game three — and runs a normal bracket on that reversed order. Same scores, genuinely different result, because a bowler who started slow and finished strong now enters the bracket the other way round.
It is the best value on the card for a director: a second bracket sale on scores you have already collected, with no extra games and no change to session length. See reverse bowling brackets.
The lowest-scoring half of the field is cut each game until a small number of survivors split the pot. Easy to explain, unpleasant to administer: after every game somebody has to compute the cut and publish who is still alive, while bowlers stand at the desk asking.
Eliminators generate more disputes per dollar than almost any other format, and nearly all of them come from two bowlers sitting on the cut line or several survivors finishing level. Post the tie rule and the split rule before the first ball. See bowling eliminator software.
A mystery pot hides the winning condition until it is revealed — a randomly selected score, frame or condition that nobody knows in advance. Bowlers who are out of contention on total pins still have a live ticket, which is exactly what a long squad needs.
The format lives or dies on credibility. If the condition was written on a piece of paper by one person before the session, the pot is only as trustworthy as that person's reputation. A selection made and tracked by the program is verifiable instead. See bowling mystery pot software.
Bowlers are paired at random and scored as a team; highest combined total wins. The appeal is that anybody can end up with anybody, including the best bowler in the building.
Two administrative details decide whether it runs clean: the draw has to be visibly impartial rather than something a person did privately with a list, and the payout has to divide cleanly between two people. Paying a pair $23 creates an argument over the odd dollar. See blind doubles bowling software, which rounds every paying place up to the next even dollar for that reason.
More formats means more revenue and more that can go wrong. A reasonable progression:
Six formats on one card means six competitions driven by the same scores. Run them in six places and you have six reconciliations at the end of the night and six chances for the drawer not to balance.
J&K Brackets Pro runs brackets, side pots, reverse brackets, mystery pots, eliminators and blind doubles inside the same session, off the same entry list, with the session totals adding up across all of them — so the money in the drawer reconciles against one set of numbers rather than several. Add tablet scoring and the scores driving all six arrive from the lanes as they happen.
The free demo of J&K Brackets Pro is the complete program, not a limited trial — every feature unlocked, capped at 16 bowlers per session, so you can work a whole session end to end and see exactly how it behaves.
Download the free demo See pricingAny optional pot played on scores that are already being bowled — brackets, side pots, eliminators, mystery pots, blind doubles and similar formats. No extra games are thrown; the same scores feed several separate competitions.
Brackets and at least one side pot cover most demand. Reverse brackets are the cheapest thing to add because they reuse scores you already have. Mystery pots and blind doubles give bowlers who are out of contention something live. Eliminators pay well but demand a published cut after every game.
No. Every common side-action format is played on games already scheduled, so lane time does not change. What grows is the administrative load at the desk, not the length of the squad.
The limit is what the desk can calculate correctly while bowlers are waiting, not what bowlers will buy. Each format adds an entry list, a pool and a payout that all fall due at the same moment.
Yes. J&K Brackets Pro runs brackets, side pots, reverse brackets, mystery pots, eliminators and blind doubles inside a single session against one entry list, with session totals that add up across every group.