Bounty, PKO and mystery bounty tournaments

In a bounty tournament, part of your buy-in goes to the regular prize pool and part is set aside as a prize on your head. Knock someone out and you collect their bounty. The three common versions pay that prize in different ways.

The three formats in plain words

Bounty (fixed bounty or knockout). Every player carries a set cash prize that never changes. If the bounty is $50, you get $50 for each player you eliminate. Your own bounty stays $50 until someone busts you.

Progressive knockout (PKO). When you bust someone, you get part of their bounty in cash right away and the rest goes onto your own head. The most common split is half and half. So the more players you knock out, the bigger the prize for whoever finally knocks you out.

Mystery bounty. The bounty money goes into a pool of prizes with hidden amounts. Once bounties are live, each knockout lets you draw one prize. Most are small, a few are big, and you don't know which one you got until it's revealed.

All three still pay the regular prize table for finishing position. The bounty is extra money on top, funded from the buy-in.

A PKO bounty, worked through

Here's a typical PKO split of half to you, half onto your head. Fee aside, say the buy-in is $500: $250 goes to the prize pool and $250 is your starting bounty. Everyone starts with a $250 bounty.

Your first knockout

You get it in with A♠K♦ against Player B's Q♥Q♣. The board runs K♣7♥2♦ 9♠ 4♥. You cover B, so B is out. B's bounty was $250:

• $125 is paid to you now, in cash.
• $125 is added to your bounty. Your head is now worth $375.

Your second knockout

An hour later you bust Player C, who has already knocked out a few people. C's bounty has grown to $600:

• $300 is paid to you now.
• $300 goes onto your head. Your bounty is now $375 + $300 = $675.

So far you've banked $425 in cash from two knockouts, and you're walking around with a $675 bounty.

When someone busts you

If Player D covers you and knocks you out, D collects $337.50 in cash and adds $337.50 to D's own bounty. Your $675 bounty was never cash in your pocket. It's a prize for someone else. You keep the $425 you already collected, plus any prize-pool payout if you'd made the money.

In the standard PKO setup, whoever wins the tournament also collects their own final bounty, since nobody is left to claim it. Check the sheet for how your event handles it.

What that bounty is worth in chips

Here's the rough way to price a bounty during a hand. In the example, $250 of your buy-in bought a 20,000-chip stack's share of the prize pool, so early on each chip is worth about $0.0125. A $125 cash bounty is worth roughly 10,000 chips of extra pot.

Now say the blinds and antes put 1,500 in the pot and a shorter player shoves 10,000. You have to call 10,000.

• Without the bounty: you're risking 10,000 to win 11,500. You need about 46.5% equity (10,000 ÷ 21,500).
• With the bounty counted: you're risking 10,000 to win about 21,500. You need roughly 31.7% (10,000 ÷ 31,500).

That gap is why bounty events see so many more calls. It's a rough guide, not a solver answer. It ignores payout pressure near the bubble and the fact that half the bounty only goes onto your head. If the pot odds and equity math is new to you, start there.

How mystery bounty tournaments work

A mystery bounty tournament pools the bounty part of every buy-in and then splits that pool into a fixed set of prizes. Players can't see which prize they'll get. After bounties go live, each knockout earns you a draw.

Here's a made-up example to show the mechanics. Say 400 players each put $250 into the bounty pool. That's $100,000. The organizer might split it into one $10,000 prize, a handful of mid-sized prizes and lots of small ones. You bust a player, you draw an envelope or token, and it might say $300 or it might say $10,000. The average draw is the pool divided by the number of prizes, but most draws come in under that average because a few big ones pull it up.

Two rules decide whether a knockout pays

1. When bounties go live. Many mystery bounty events don't turn bounties on until a later stage, often around the money or on a later day. A knockout before that moment usually pays nothing extra.
2. Who draws. The player who makes the elimination draws. In side pots and three-way all-ins, that may not be the player who won the most chips in the hand.

Mystery bounty in Toronto

Great Canadian's recap of the 2025 WSOP Circuit Toronto series lists a Mystery Bounty ring event with a C$585,420 prize pool. That's a historical example of the format running locally, not a current event or buy-in. See WSOP Circuit Toronto for the rest of that series.

Side-by-side

What changes at the table

• You must cover to collect. Usually only the player who has the bigger stack, and actually busts the other, gets the bounty. If you have 8,000 and your opponent has 12,000, winning the pot doesn't knock them out.
• Short stacks get called lighter. Big stacks call wider because the bounty adds to the pot. If you're short, expect more calls when you shove.
• Big bounties draw fire. In a PKO, the player who's busted five people has a big number on their head. Others will call them wider.
• The payout table still matters. Near the bubble, making the money can be worth more than a small bounty. See payout structures.
• Multi-way all-ins. The bounty goes to whoever eliminates the player, which may be a third player with a bigger stack.

Before you enter

1. How much of the buy-in goes to the prize pool, the house fee and the bounty pool?
2. When do bounties go live?
3. Are bounties paid in cash, chips, tickets or a mystery envelope?
4. In a PKO, what's the split between cash and your own bounty?
5. What happens to leftover bounties at the final table?

If the posted structure doesn't answer those, ask the tournament desk. Don't assume the rules from a different event with a similar name. The buy-ins and fees page shows how to read the split.

FAQ

By the TorontoPoker.org editorial team · Updated September 2026 · 19+ · Play responsibly