GGPoker’s Bounty Hunters Series returned for its April 2026 running from the 5th through the 28th, and according to reporting on the series, it carried a $80,000,000 total guarantee, up 60 percent from the prior year’s $50 million edition and, at the time, the largest guaranteed bounty series in online poker history.
Two bounty formats running side by side
The series leans on two related but distinct formats. Progressive bounty events pay a player cash immediately for every opponent they eliminate, and that player’s own bounty value grows with every knockout they collect, meaning eliminating a player who has already knocked out several others pays considerably more than eliminating one who has not. Mystery bounty events add a layer of unpredictability on top of that structure: bounty values are hidden until the moment of elimination, so knocking out a short stacked opponent can occasionally pay far more than the stack size alone would suggest, and knocking out a monster stack can turn out to be a min cash bounty.
Volume over concentration
Rather than concentrating the guarantee into a handful of marquee events, the series ran a genuinely high volume schedule: 36 events per day from Monday through Saturday, stepping up to 40 events on Sundays. Buy-ins ranged from $10 up to $1,500, with the large majority of events priced at $150 or below, which keeps the series accessible to recreational players rather than positioning it primarily as a high stakes showcase.
The marquee events
Three events anchored the schedule specifically. The $25 Mystery Bounty Mini Main ran its Day 2 on April 13. The $5.40 Bounty Hunters Warm Up reached its final stage on April 20. The series’ crown jewel, the $108 Mystery Bounty Main Event, played its Day 2 on April 27, closing out the series the following day.
A separate schedule for Ontario
Players in Ontario, who play under a separate regulated player pool due to Canadian provincial gaming rules, had their own parallel version of the series, guaranteeing $2,000,000 across the same April 5 to 27 window, headlined by a $250,000 guaranteed Mystery Bounty Main Event scaled appropriately for that smaller, jurisdiction locked player base.
Why this format keeps growing
Bounty formats have become one of the more consistently popular tournament structures across the industry precisely because they change the incentive structure of the entire tournament. A short stacked player is never simply grinding for a min cash, since every remaining opponent they eliminate pays out immediately regardless of their own final finishing position, which keeps more of the field engaged for longer and produces the kind of aggressive, action heavy play that shorter, lower buy-in recreational fields tend to reward.