A mystery pot keeps the winning condition secret until it is revealed, which is what makes it fun — and why the draw has to be random and the results clear to everyone.
A mystery pot is a side pot whose winning condition is not announced in advance. Bowlers buy in without knowing what they are aiming at; the condition is revealed afterwards and whoever matched it takes the pot.
That single change of sequence is what makes the format work. In an ordinary high-game pot, a bowler who opens with 150 knows within twenty minutes that their money is gone. In a mystery pot they do not, because nobody knows yet what the pot is looking for. Everybody in the building still has a live ticket in the tenth frame of the last game.
The winning condition stays hidden until you reveal it. Because the selection is made by the program and tracked automatically, the reveal is verifiable rather than a matter of trusting whoever wrote it on a piece of paper before the session.
This is the part of the format that operators underestimate, so it is worth stating plainly. A mystery pot asks bowlers to pay into a competition whose rules are concealed from them at the moment they pay. That is a large amount of trust, and it rests entirely on how the hidden condition was chosen.
If one person wrote the condition on a folded slip before the session, the pot is exactly as trustworthy as that person's reputation — and no more. It does not matter that they were honest. What matters is that nobody can demonstrate it, and a format that cannot be demonstrated is a format that eventually gets questioned by somebody who lost.
A selection made by the program and tracked through the session removes the question. The operator is not the source of the condition; they are running the reveal like everybody else. That is a better position to be in even when nobody has ever doubted you.
Entries are tracked automatically and the payout is calculated the moment the condition is revealed, from the pool that was actually collected. The base payout is the net pool — you are not paying out numbers the pot cannot cover.
A mystery pot adds a second thing to buy without adding a single game to the schedule, and it gives bowlers who are out of contention on total pins a reason to keep paying attention. On a long squad that is worth more than the pot itself — a room that is still watching in the last game is a room that buys again next time.
This runs inside the same session as your brackets and side pots. You are not exporting to a second tool or keeping a separate sheet — entries, scores, counts and payouts all live in one place, and the printed reports come out of the same program, so the drawer reconciles against one set of session totals rather than several.
The free demo is the complete program, not a limited trial — every feature unlocked, capped at 16 bowlers per session so you can see exactly how it works.
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By making sure the hidden condition was not chosen by a person who could later be accused of choosing it badly. A selection made and tracked by the program is verifiable at reveal; a condition written on a folded slip beforehand is only as trustworthy as the person who wrote it.
Yes — everything except the condition itself. Publish the entry fee, when the reveal happens, how many places pay and what is retained. Concealing the condition is the format; concealing the terms is not.
Whenever the operator has published that it will be, most commonly after the last game of the session. The payout is calculated at that moment from the pool actually collected.
Because it stays live for everybody. In a high-game pot a bowler who opens badly knows their money is gone; in a mystery pot nobody can know that yet, so the whole room is still paying attention in the last game.