Is Go played for money?
In the West, Go is almost exclusively played for fun. The exception here would top players who strive for tournament price money. This is actually a pretty important, there have been intense discussions between the organizers of the major Go tournaments/congresses and top players about the sum and distribution of money.

In Asia, Go is more often than not played without money on stake, however, betting on your own games is well known, too, especially for older folks. In Japan, there is a basic differentiation how money is distributed according to the result:


In ban-go the winner simply takes it all.
In me-go money is exchanged according to the territory at the end, so winning with a large difference is advantageous.


In Korea, betting games are called Bang Neki, typically with a fixed sum for winning and extra money for each bang (score difference of 10 points).