If all you care about is the prize money, then there are easier ways to rob people, e.g. at gunpoint on their way out of the competition venue. The Rules say "If Person X does Y, then Person X gets Z". You want to rationalize interrupting that process to take Z for yourself. Y could be "their job" and Z could be "their salary". I suppose, in your terms, highway robbery is also a "high risk, high return course of action".
But entering into the competition under the guise of legitimate play means you also care about the prestige of being declared the winner. But you haven't won the game. You've played a completely different game. You can claim to have played the same game, but that would be a lie. You could just as easily redefine "narcissistic sociopath" in your own head to exclude adhering to The Rules. But it'd still be a lie.
I see in your other comments in this thread that you claim "most people finish dead last in life", intimating that they are fools for not cheating. But that's the thing: if everyone cheated, it would be a complete breakdown of society. Rules, laws, and systems to enforce them, are how we can leave our houses in the morning without wearing bulletproof armor from head to toe.
But what do I know? I only have a happy life with my wife and two kids. I'm a loser. So go! Cheat at science and get that Nobel Prize money! Cheat at keeping your restaurant clean and pocket the savings on soap! Never mind the wasted time and resources and lives ruined. You're a winner.