Aaron Pinson Wins Borgata Mystery Bounty
Aaron Pinson won the $2,200 Big, Big Mystery Bounty at Borgata, pulling $150,000 in bounties and chopping heads-up with Matt Glantz for $44,825 each.
The $2,200 Big, Big Mystery Bounty has wrapped up at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City as part of the Borgata Big, Big Series 2026. Aaron Pinson took the title after a remarkable run of envelope draws, collecting a total of $199,825 from the tournament.
The event drew 232 entries against a guaranteed prize pool of $500,000. Among the rewards available to players were two premium envelopes worth $50,000 each and two worth $25,000, alongside the standard payouts.
From Short Stack to Envelope Magnet
Pinson entered the final day among the 24 remaining players, starting from the lower third of the leaderboard. He built his stack through the day and then found the golden touch when it came time to draw bounties. He pulled both of the top $50,000 envelopes and, at the very end, claimed the last $25,000 reward, amassing $150,000 from bounties alone.
That bounty total is the headline number of the result. Mystery bounty formats pay players for eliminations, but the value of each bounty is hidden until the envelope is opened, which means a single draw can swing a tournament result dramatically. Pinson's run of draws did exactly that, turning a mid-pack stack into the largest overall score of the event.
Heads-Up Chop and the Trophy Flip
In the final heads-up match, Pinson faced Matt Glantz. With similar stacks, the two quickly agreed to split the remaining winnings evenly, securing $44,825 each. They decided the trophy with a flip. Pinson's 9s 3d defeated Glantz's Td 6h after the board ran out Kd 9h 9c 6d 4c.
Pinson walked away with nearly 40% of the tournament's total prize pool and secured his first title on Borgata's grounds.
Final Table Results
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- Aaron Pinson (USA) — $44,825*
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- Matt Glantz (USA) — $44,825*
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- Michael Wang (USA) — $25,500
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- Michael McNicholas (USA) — $17,225
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- Dylan Lemery (USA) — $12,725
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- Victor Ramdin (USA) — $10,325
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- Paul Spitzberg (USA) — $8,525
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- Pashk Gjini (USA) — $7,125
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- Justin Arnwine (USA) — $5,950
*Denotes a heads-up deal.
Why Mystery Bounty Events Draw Fields
The mystery bounty format has become a staple of modern tournament schedules because it combines a standard freezeout structure with a lottery-style element. Players pay a bounty portion of the buy-in, and eliminations earn a draw from a pool of envelopes with values ranging from modest to headline-grabbing. The format tends to produce larger fields than a comparable standard event, since the possibility of a six-figure envelope adds a second way to profit beyond the traditional payout ladder.
For players, the strategic adjustments are real. Bounty considerations can change calling ranges, especially near the money bubble and on the final day when envelopes are in play. A player who is covered by a shorter stack has to weigh the value of the bounty against tournament survival, and the math shifts depending on how many envelopes remain and what has already been drawn.
In Pinson's case, the draws did the heavy lifting. A $150,000 bounty haul on top of a $44,825 chop is the kind of outcome that mystery bounty events are built to produce, and it turned a final-day comeback into the largest score of the series stop.
The Borgata Big, Big Series 2026 continues to anchor Atlantic City's tournament calendar, with the mystery bounty event serving as one of its signature draws.
FAQ
- Pinson collected $199,825 in total, including $150,000 from bounty envelopes and $44,825 from an even heads-up chop with Matt Glantz.