Historical challenge prizes

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7. The Billiard Ball Prize

Year: 1863
Promoter: Phelan and Collender of New York City
Prize: $10,000 (Today's value $165,650)
Winner: John Wesley Hyatt (although this is unofficial as no winner was formally announced)

This prize was to find a suitable substitute for ivory to make billiard balls. 

The billiard industry had realised that for both ethics and cost there was a need to find an alternative to slaughtering elephants for their ivory tusks to manufacture billiard balls.