It's not ******* at all. The website and the prize pool are 2 completely seperate entities. The $1.25 per team charge is the fee to operate the website. It has nothing to do with the actual game itself.
And since I'm not taking anything off the top, it's not ******* to run the pool. It's just like an office football pool or a card game at your house. If you run them where all the prize money goes to the winners, there's nothing ******* at all about it. But if you take a certain percentage out to run things, then it becomes *******.