GGPOKER

GGPoker spent the spring of 2025 doing something it had managed only once before: guaranteeing a quarter of a billion dollars in a single online series. The GG World Festival ran from May 4 through June 10 with $250,000,000 promised across more than 1,300 tournaments.

It has come a long way. What began in 2018 as the Good Game Series, and took its current name in 2022, is now the biggest recurring event in online poker, the kind of thing Daniel Negreanu introduces by calling it the place where legends are made.

By the end of five weeks, the guarantee looked conservative again.

A Quarter-Billion, Surpassed

The festival ran on four buy-in tiers, from a $3 Low all the way up to the $1,051-and-above Super, so that a micro-stakes grinder and a high roller chased the same trophies on the same nights. A $3 million leaderboard rewarded the players who showed up for all of it.

It was built around three Sundays, each carrying a $10 million guarantee of its own: the $525 Global Mystery Bounty Festival, the $1,500 GG World Championship, and the $10,300 GGMillion$ Super Main Event, running on three consecutive weekends. The Super Main assembled an $11.2 million prize pool, the largest of the series. The World Championship drew 7,695 entries for $10.58 million.

When the counting was done, the 2025 festival had awarded $324.77 million in prizes across 1,419 tournaments and 5,631,076 entries, comfortably past the quarter-billion it had promised.

The Envelope from 298th Place

The first of the three flagships produced the moment of the festival. The $525 Global Mystery Bounty Festival drew 20,659 entries and built a $10,329,500 pool, and when it finally ended after nearly twenty-seven hours of play, ‘NOWAYM8’ had the title and $676,039.55.

But the story belonged to a player who never came close to winning.

The mystery bounty format is cruel and generous at once: knock an opponent out, open an envelope, and find anything from pocket change to a life-changing sum. ‘Bluffcacher’ busted in 298th place, collected around $1,500 in prize money, and opened the biggest envelope of the entire festival: $750,000. It was the largest single mystery bounty GGPoker awarded all series, and it went to a player who finished nowhere near the final table.

One Man, Every Bounty

A week later, Pavel Plesuv did something the format is built to make nearly impossible. In a $10,300 Saturday event, he won the tournament and claimed every mystery bounty in it, the entire $240,000 pool, on top of $68,148.65 in prize money. His runners-up left with nothing from the envelopes. It was a $308,148.65 haul and a clean sweep, the kind of result that gets a format re-examined.

The Bounties Found Everyone

Plesuv’s sweep was the exception. The rule was chaos, and it paid out in every direction. In one $1,500 Sunday event, Dima SPR busted in sixth for roughly $11,000 in prize money and then opened a $99,300 mystery bounty, the biggest single payday at the table by a distance. The pattern held all festival: envelopes worth $56,000, $45,000, and $30,000 landing on players who went out 48th, 41st, or hundreds deep in the field. The format turned every knockout into a lottery ticket, and for five weeks the tickets kept hitting.

Where the Big Scores Landed

The Super tier gathered the familiar names and a few enormous numbers. The richest main-pool score outside the flagships came in the $25,500 GGMillion$ Omaholic Edition, a Pot-Limit Omaha event Mikalai Vaskaboinikau took for $542,624.98 in a three-way deal. Adrian Mateos won a $25,500 Sunday Main Event and its 24-entry field for $273,513.43. Vladimir Minko was everywhere, winning a $25,500 Sunday Main for $211,260.60 and adding another six-figure score later in a bounty event.

Alex Foxen beat Michael Addamo heads-up in a $10,300 Monday Monster Stack for $132,350.39, while Ole Schemion, Juan Dominguez, and Ottomar Ladva each banked six figures in Super events of their own. One of the festival’s best stories came in a $525 High-tier Sunday Main, where Joao Hayashi topped a field of nearly 3,900 for a $91,428.82 payday and a $108,144.42 bounty, the centerpiece of an all-Brazilian sweep of the podium.

The Marquee Results

The events and scores that defined the 2025 festival, at a glance:

Event	Buy-in	Entries	Winner	Top Prize
Global Mystery Bounty Festival	$525	20,659	‘NOWAYM8’	$676,039.55 (+$28,320 bounty)
GGMillion$ Omaholic Edition (PLO)	$25,500	44	Mikalai Vaskaboinikau (deal)	$542,624.98
Sunday Main Event	$25,500	24	Adrian Mateos	$273,513.43
Sunday Main Event	$25,500	22	Vladimir Minko	$211,260.60
Monday Monster Stack	$10,300	63	Ottomar Ladva	$145,193.97
Monday Monster Stack	$10,300	52	Juan Dominguez	$133,097.67
Monday Monster Stack	$10,300	46	Alex Foxen	$132,350.39
Tuesday Classic	$10,300	43	Ole Schemion	$123,718.84
Saturday Secret KO [Mystery Bounty]	$10,300	48	Pavel Plesuv	$68,148.65 (+$240,000 bounty)
Saturday Secret KO [Mystery Bounty]	$10,300	47	Samuel Vousden	$70,988.16 (+$202,000 bounty)
Saturday Secret KO [Mystery Bounty]	$10,300	42	Enrico Camosci	$61,055.24 (+$160,000 bounty)
Bounty Hunters Sunday Main Event	$525	3,867	Joao Hayashi	$91,428.82 (+$108,144.42 bounty)

Five weeks, 5.6 million entries, and one envelope worth $750,000 to a player who busted in 298th. The GG World Festival has become the biggest recurring event in online poker, and it shows no sign of slowing. The bar keeps moving, and GGPoker keeps being the one to move it.

 

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About the Author: Shawn Altbaum has been writing and editing in the online gaming industry since 2007, reporting live from the WSOP Main Event and conducting interviews with professional players. An active poker player, he combines industry expertise with firsthand knowledge of the games he covers. He currently serves as Global Head of Copywriting at NSUS Group, overseeing brand voice and content strategy across GGPoker and GGVegas.