Duke & Hellmuth chop Tournament of Champions prize money???

[Any2ForU]

Last weekend a dealer at the Bellagio said that Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke chopped the $2 million free roll Tournament of Champions event that was aired on ESPN. Does anyone have any insight on this? It completely makes sense that a side deal would be made given the fact that second place paid $-0-. I think it would be in both players best interest to make a deal. Why would anyone want to walk away empty handed when they could be guaranteed $1,000,000, or whatever agreed upon amount. I've heard that Harrah's has tried to discourage this practice, but as far as I know there hasn't been any real consequences established, such as, banning people from future events, imposing monetary sanctions, etc.

If it’s true, I can understand why certain parties wouldn't want things like this to become public knowledge. The integrity of the televised event might be jeopardized. It seems, however, that such a deal would just be a sound financial decision for the players as long as there are no real consequences. I think anyone would take a guaranteed payday of $1 million in that situation regardless of the opponent, or their skill level, when the result of losing would be walking away empty-handed. Therefore, I don't think it's a knock on any of the players involved if it's true. Has anyone heard anything about this?