Ideas To Address Cheating in a Play-To-Earn Game involving BTC

Hi Guys,

So I have a Web3 battle royale game where players place a stake into a prize pool before a match starts. After the match finishes, a score is calculated for each player (based on metrics like kills/death, shooting accuracy, etc...), and the prize pool is split based on performance.

The issue with this is the cheating. As there is money involved, people will 100% try to cheat. Now, one can use machine learning algorithms to try to detect these cheaters and take their stake away, but the issue with this is that cheaters will always find a way to hack the program without getting caught. Traditional anti-cheat methods will always be in a cat-and-mouse game with hackers.

What do you suggest I do?
I was thinking of one of two things. Either:
- I make the game completely open to cheaters, where cheaters are welcome to use whatever cheating mechanism they want, and may the best cheater win. This seems a little crazy and may get messy, but could evolve into a bot-vs-bot war, like AI-driven battles, or
- I change the structure/mechanic in the game such that performance is not the determining factor is players winning the prize pool.

What do you guys think I should do?
I'm open to any ideas.