Elling: Mini-tours "legalized gambling"

I was reading an article today by CBS Sportsline's Steve Elling (formerly with the Orlando Sentinel) about the 2008 rookies on the US PGA Tour [ here is the article ]. While I was reading the article a small sentence caught my eye. He said: mini-tours is a form of "legalized gambling" (under Kevin Streelman's bio).

Elling's premise for saying that playing mini-tours is gambling is because the prize purse is funded almost completely by the player's entry fees.

Is an event that funds the majority of the prize purse with player entry fees gambling?