winner-takes-all

Adjective

winner-take-all (not comparable)

1. Of or pertaining to a contest, election, or other competition in which only the winner is rewarded and none of the losers receive anything.
   • You need luck in poker tournaments, because in the nature of this winner-take-all style of play, there will be several occasions when you cannot avoid putting all your money in the pot.1993 December 7, David Spanier, “Poker: Winner takes all”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 20 May 2014
2. Of a market in which a product or service that is only slightly better than its competitors receives a disproportionately large share of revenue.
3. Of a neural network model: organized so that neurons in a layer compete with each other for activation.