Same as any competition for a prize really. You pay entry fee and you have a chance of converting that fee into something that is worth much more.
"The ticket price is too high";
Well if 3500 PED over two weeks (250 ped per day, i think?) is too much for a chance of winning these items, then you probably have no business owning these items.
I really don´t think having a higher tax and lower ticket cost would have been better, I know I have absolutely no interest in grinding a high tax event at least. It seems as though people are recently getting better at understanding the implications of hunting taxed (you know, that you lose the tax) and as such are less interested in hunting taxed.
If tax was set at 3% i would lose a decent chunk more than 3500 ped in 2 weeks