Lucas Scafini, a businessman from Rio Grande do Sul, claimed the title in the BSOP Winter Mystery Bounty event held in Sao Paulo on Monday, July 27, 2026, turning a single day at the tables into a R$275,000 score. The 1-Day High Roller Mystery Bounty drew 81 entries at a R$10,000 buy-in, and Scafini outlasted the entire field to walk away with the biggest prize of the tournament, according to SuperPoker.
Scafini Takes Down the BSOP Winter Mystery Bounty
The victory capped a demanding one-day schedule that is typical of high roller mystery bounty tournaments, where players need to survive a compressed structure while also chasing extra cash for every knockout they land. Scafini, playing as an amateur businessman rather than a touring professional, managed to handle both pressures and finish on top of a field that included several well known faces from the Brazilian poker scene.
For Scafini, the result is a career highlight. Coming from Rio Grande do Sul, he traveled to Sao Paulo for the BSOP Winter series and left with the largest single payday of the tournament, combining a strong table run with a share of good fortune from the bounty envelopes drawn throughout the day.
How the Mystery Bounty Format Boosted the Payout
Mystery bounty tournaments differ from a standard freezeout or even a typical progressive knockout event. Instead of splitting the entire prize pool strictly by finishing position, a portion of the money is set aside for bounty envelopes. Whenever a player eliminates an opponent, they earn the right to open one of these envelopes, and the amount inside stays unknown until it is revealed, ranging from modest sums to prizes large enough to change the entire complexion of the tournament.
This structure rewards aggressive play across the whole field, not only at the final table, since even a player who barely min-cashes can hand out a huge envelope to whoever eliminates them. For readers who are newer to tournament poker and want to understand how these formats fit into the broader game, our guide on how to play poker walks through the basic structures before getting into variations like the mystery bounty.
In Scafini’s case, the format turned an already strong result into something much bigger. Of his R$275,000 total, R$160,000 came directly from the bounty envelopes he collected during the tournament, meaning bounties made up more than half of his final haul. The remaining amount reflects his finishing payout for taking first place on the standard payout ladder, so the mystery bounty mechanic effectively doubled the value of his run.
Buy-in, Field Size, and Final Table Payouts
The R$10,000 buy-in event attracted 81 entries, a healthy turnout for a 1-Day High Roller during the BSOP Winter series. That field size set up a final table payout structure that rewarded the top finishers well beyond their entry fee, even before bounty money is factored in.
Felipe Fonseca finished as the runner-up, banking R$132,000 for his deep run. Daniel Croce rounded out the top three, taking home R$57,000. Both results underline how competitive the high roller field was that day, with the top three separated by real money while each still left with a payday that justified the buy-in.
A Footballer at the Final Table
Adding an extra layer of interest to the final table was the presence of Nahuel Ferraresi, a professional footballer from Venezuela who plays as a defender for Botafogo. Ferraresi sat alongside seasoned poker players as the field narrowed, a reminder of how poker in Brazil continues to attract crossover interest from athletes and public figures outside the game.
His participation gave the event extra visibility beyond the usual poker crowd, even though the headline result belonged to Scafini. Final tables that mix recognizable names from other fields with dedicated grinders tend to draw additional attention, and this one was no exception.
Same-Day Action: the PKO Event Also Crowns a Winner
Scafini’s win was not the only headline from the BSOP Winter series that Monday. Running alongside the Mystery Bounty event was the 1-Day High Roller PKO, a separate progressive knockout tournament that crowned its own champion. Moacir Caetano took down that event for R$147,000, giving the series two significant winners on the same day.
While the PKO result stands on its own, it highlights just how busy the schedule was during this stretch of BSOP Winter, with high roller options running in parallel and multiple six-figure paydays handed out within the same 24 hours in Sao Paulo.
What Scafini’s Win Means for BSOP Winter
Scafini’s run through the 1-Day High Roller Mystery Bounty is exactly the kind of story that keeps mystery bounty formats popular with both recreational players and grinders. An amateur businessman turning a R$10,000 buy-in into R$275,000, aided heavily by bounty envelopes, is the sort of outcome the format is designed to produce.
As BSOP Winter continues in Sao Paulo, the series will keep offering opportunities for both dedicated professionals and outside talent, footballers included, to test themselves against Brazil’s high roller crowd. For now, the spotlight belongs to Lucas Scafini, whose Monday in Sao Paulo turned into one of the more memorable results of the series.
