How Mystery Bounty Tournaments Work

Mystery Bounty Mechanics: Live vs Online 

The signature of all Mystery Bounty events is a randomized distribution of prizes for knocking out players.

The range of bounties both in live and online tournaments is usually quite wide and depends on the stated guarantee. For example, the WPN flagship tournament $2,650 Venom Mystery KO NLH $10M Gtd in August 2025 offered players bounties between $5,000 and $500,000.

In most cases, the cumulative prize pool of each event splits into two parts after late registration is over or the last Day 1 / flight is completed: the first half goes to the classical prize pool and the second half goes to the bounty prize pool.

The order of issuing bounties differs a little between live events and online events.

In live Mystery tournaments players receive a token, ticket or some other thing for each player they eliminate right after the hand is done.

Then, depending on the venue’s or event’s rules, each player goes to the special area in the casino on the tournament’s break or at the end of playing day or a representative of staff comes to them and exchanges each token to the envelope with the amount of bounty sealed inside.

The envelope can be pulled from the lotto machine, special chest or box, bag, hat or any other item chosen by organizers for bounties distribution.

Photo Credit: Rachel Kay Winter

After having collected all their bounties, players go to the casino cashier and cash them out.

In online Mystery tournaments distribution is automated. It happens instantly after a player knocks out an opponent and money goes directly to the player’s account in the room.

Depending on the type of event, the Mystery Bounty stage is triggered at different times:

• Multiflight — when Day 2 or Final Day starts.
• Multi-day — when a certain Day or the stage of the Day begins.
• Single / One day — when late registration is over or the field is shortened to a specific percentage of players.

Most rooms and brands try to make the moment of getting a mystery bounty memorable with their own unique graphics or celebratory process — even in the rare cases of taking a $000,000 bounty as it happened to Jason Christopher in WPT $1M Freeroll 2024.

Key Timeline of Mystery Bounty’s Appearance in Poker

The first documented appearance of Mystery Bounty in poker happened in October 2021 in the Wynn Poker Room.

A year after, online poker websites began to implement this format on their own — here are the most significant dates of this process:

For a more detailed history of Mystery Bounty in poker, read the article: The Emergence and Popularity Reasons of Mystery Bounty Format in Poker.