My apologies for any confusion! The $500 was added to the total amount players pledged. DietBet then takes the 25% from that number. Because this game was unusual in that it had so many winners (YAY!), we ending up taking a lesser percentage so that the winners received their initial game pledge. Although you may not have earned a few extra dollars, I'm hoping you'll still consider losing the weight for free a big victory!
DietBet has this same response after every one of these games, always the same story. No one ever wins anything and if they do it's never more than $1-2 at the end of it all. Looks like DietBet always wins