Valentyn Shabelnyk Strikes Gold
In the World Series of Poker Event #5: Mystery Millions No Limit Hold’em, two lucky players pulled out the golden envelope. The first one to do it was Valentyn Shabelnyk, who was also the first to win $1,000,000 in the 2024 edition of the WSOP.
There were 18,409 participants in the event, which generated a prize pool of $16,199,920. $5,523,000 is reserved for mystery bounties, which is the third of the whole prize pool. There are a total of 949 bounties for players to win, and only two of them are $1,000,000, which means that Shabelnyk has a 0.21 percent chance of winning it.
Possible Mystery Bounty Prizes
| Number of Bounties | Bounty Prize | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | $1,000,000 | $2,000,000 |
| 1 | $500,000 | $500,000 |
| 1 | $250,000 | $250,000 |
| 3 | $100,000 | $300,000 |
| 5 | $50,000 | $250,000 |
| 38 | $25,000 | $950,000 |
| 17 | $10,000 | $170,000 |
| 38 | $5,000 | $190,000 |
| 46 | $2,500 | $115,000 |
| 798 | $1,000 | $798,000 |
| Total Bounty Prize Pool | $5,523,000 |
Valentyn Shabelnyk didn’t have the same luck in the tournament as he finished in 528th place for $3,070, but indeed, he can already feel like the champion.
DJ Buckley Gets the Second Milly
Shabelnyk wasn’t the only one who felt like a champion when DJ Buckley opened the envelope and saw seven digits written on it. Buckley, as expected, seemed very happy about his draw and showed it to the cameras.
With 281 players remaining in the race for the title and remaining bounties, DJ Buckley is still in the game and can potentially still win a $500,000 mystery bounty.
Adam Hendrix was a bit less lucky than the former two but still far from disappointed. Hendrix pulled out $25,000 and $100,000 bounties and is still going strong in the tournament, with over 9 million in chips, and currently in 17th place.
How Do Mystery Bounties Work?
The Mystery Bounty is a new format that has been introduced to MTTs. It combines a knockout format with a lottery. Every time a player knocks another player out of the tournament, he gets to open an envelope containing a random prize. The prizes can range from 1x to 1000x the buy-in, so anyone can get lucky and make a fortune.
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Images and hands courtesy of WSOP
