Sorry if this has been asked before but I don't recall reading about it ... how much money is in cockfighting? I'm sadly aware of the practice as well as dogfighting which sickens me but because it's an underground thing... it's not like there's a Triple Crown of rooster fighting or anything. Gambling can snowball into some biga$$ debt no matter the venue.
I think the best answer would be the vague "more than a little, but less than truly alot". I have heard that a top bird can earn tens of thousands of dollars and that likewise, tens of thousands of dollars can be placed on various contestants in the underground versions of the "Triple Crown".
Even these vague figures must be analyzed by relativity. Say $35,000 is not much when applied to suburban Chicago. The same amount, however, can be seen as a small fortune in appalachia, the inner city, the rural deep south, or the rural southwest.
Figures aside, I dont think the motivation for the systematic murder of eight people was cockfighting. Even applying relativity, and the possibility of a Super Triple Crown underground event, the stakes are just not that high. Rather, a simple and easy drive by shooting (usually one dead- if that) would be used to resolve *advertiser censored* fighting debts or a who owns what bird "debate".