Quality contests

•Expected winner's effort is maximized in lottery contests (i.e., quality contests).•Exclusion of all but the two highest players may be beneficial in quality contests.•Unleveling the playing field is beneficial in quality contests.•Weakening the underdog may be beneficial in quality contests.•Results are in sharp contrast with the standard sum of efforts maximization.

In noisy contests where only the winner's entry will eventually be implemented, the suitable objective is to maximize the expected quality of the entry of the winner. We compare the optimal set of rules in contests under such an objective to the one under maximization of the sum of contestants' efforts, which is commonly assumed in the literature, and find that it may be beneficial to exclude weak contestants, unlevel the playing field, and weaken the underdog.