Brzezinski’s Malta Job Bet Pays an EPT Title

Tomasz Brzezinski won the 2025 EPT Malta Main Event for €631,632 ($738,963) on October 12, 2025. The sports-betting worker, a Malta resident for a decade, beat 898 entries at Casino Malta after a five-hour heads-up against Mykhailo Ostash of Ukraine.

Ten years earlier he had picked a regular job on the island over a life on the felt. The European Poker Tour then stayed away for nine years. When it came back, the man who took that job took the trophy.

The Safe Job He Took in Malta

Brzezinski, then 37, grew up in Leszno, Poland, and tried to grind poker before he moved. He said the fork in the road was simple: keep playing or take a salary. He took the salary, relocating to Malta to work in sports betting, the island’s real gambling trade, and kept cards as a hobby.

THE SIDE GAME HE KEPT

• Local buy-ins: For seven years he stuck to island series with buy-ins no higher than €1,000.
• Ceiling before 2025: He had never won more than €40,000 in a live score.
• The €400 detour: Between Barcelona and Malta he still sat a €400 SiGMA event and finished second for €19,000.

That résumé is why the rail treated him as a recreational. It is also why the win landed harder in Poland, where live poker sits outside the law, so a Polish champion’s “home” table was the jurisdiction that already paid his wages.

I used to play poker years ago. Then came the choice to continue with poker or start a regular job. I decided to go the safe route, but I’ve always played on the side. I enjoy live poker much more than my actual work sometimes.

Tomasz Brzezinski, after winning the 2025 EPT Malta Main Event

He called himself a sponge around stronger regulars, studying ugly spots rather than quitting the office. “I’ve got a lot of friends who are great players, and I try to be a sponge, learn from them, and analyze spots. Somehow, it’s paying off,” he said.

EPT Came Back After Nine Years

PokerStars billed the festival as the first Malta stop since 2016, running October 1-12, 2025 at Casino Malta rather than the old Portomaso room. The €5,300 Main Event played October 6-12 and built a prize pool of €4,355,300, with 135 paid places. The series listed 71 events with buy-ins from €300 to €100,000.

The 2016 closer had been a smaller stop. Aliaksei Boika of Belarus won that Main Event for €355,700 from 468 entries and a €2,269,800 pool. Nine years later he was back at the same tour, chasing a second title in the same country, while a Malta-based betting worker sat two seats away.

TWO MALTA MAIN EVENTS

Adrian Mateos busted 11th. Juan Pardo took eighth for €91,250 and Ben Heath seventh for €118,650, so the trophy did not dodge the touring names. It just did not go to them. PokerStars Team Pro David Lappin later wrote that “Brzezinski is top of the list for poker’s breakout stars of 2025,” a line that fit the résumé more than the day job on his visa.

What Back-to-Back Final Tables Paid Him?

In August 2025 he finished fourth in the EPT Barcelona Main Event for €493,250, his first live six-figure score, from 2,045 entries and a €9,918,250 pool. Six weeks later, 42 days after that final table, he was in the last five in Malta. That made him the 11th player in the tour’s 21-year run to post consecutive Main Event final tables.

THE TWO-STOP HAUL

• Barcelona, August 2025: Fourth place, €493,250, first six-figure live cash.
• Malta, October 2025: First place, €631,632, after the heads-up chop.
• Combined Main Events: €1,124,882 in six weeks, before any side cashes.

He had already planned to play Malta before Barcelona exploded. The second final table was not a victory lap he booked after the first; it was the home festival on the calendar of someone who lives there. Asked about Prague, he said, “Of course, of course.” He did show up. He cashed 115th in the EPT Prague Main Event for €11,050, a result that looks tiny beside the two scores above and exactly like a side game.

Fourteen All-Ins After the Chop

Ostash bagged the Day 5 lead at 9,870,000 chips, about 123 big blinds, with Brzezinski third at 5,380,000, about 67 big blinds. Five players returned on Day 6. Tom-Aksel Bedell, the Norwegian high roller who had led earlier in the week, went first when his deuces lost to Ostash’s threes. The official 898-entry Main Event coverage hub logged the rest of the ladder in brutal order.

FINAL TABLE PAYOUTS

*Heads-up deal. First place had been listed at €760,000 and second at €474,650 before the chop.

Stacks evened soon after heads-up began, so they split the remaining money and left €28,574 plus the trophy in play. Ostash, whose prior live cashes sat under $20,000, had already locked up a life-changing second-place ticket. The match still ran about five hours.

THE HEADS-UP CLOCK

1. October 12, 2025, early heads-up: Stacks even out; both lock in more than €600,000 and play on for €28,574 and the title.
2. Ostash’s escape run: He doubles 11 times, shoving 12 of the 14 all-ins, including a king-jack flip through tens and a river call that briefly puts him in front.
3. Brzezinski at risk: Pocket eights hold versus ace-jack, then ace-jack beats ace-ten and leaves Ostash on one big blind.
4. The 14th all-in: Ostash’s five-heart four-spade runs into ten-club four-diamond; the board of queen-diamond, ten-spade, jack-diamond, four-club, six-heart makes tens up and ends it.

Brzezinski admitted he thought it was getting away. “It was wild,” he said. “At some point, yes, I thought it might slip away. I’m not the luckiest in heads-up. I’ve been second six or seven times at festivals before, so it almost felt like I was cursed. Especially after losing so many flips in a row and watching the stacks even out again. But in the end, it went my way, and I’m very happy.” He later added, “I ran lucky the whole tournament, the same at EPT Barcelona.”

Boika Fell One Title Short of History

The other back-to-back story at the table belonged to Boika. A second Malta title would have put him with Victoria Coren Mitchell, Mikalai Pobal and Mike Watson as a two-time EPT Main Event winner, and it would have been a defense in the same country nine years apart. He made a hero call with ace high that briefly lifted his stack, then ran kings into Ostash’s fives. Ostash flopped a set and shoved about 2.5 times the pot on the river. Boika took fourth for €260,750.

Adria Calonge of Spain busted third for €339,000 when king-five failed to catch Brzezinski’s tens. That left two players who, on paper, did not belong in a room with Heath and Pardo: a Malta betting employee and a Ukrainian who had been playing online events at about a $30 average buy-in earlier in the year before a Sunday Million win of $83,987 and a WCOOP Low Main Event third for $108,138. The live trophy still went to the man with the office job.

Eighth on Poland’s Live Money List

The Hendon Mob now ranks him eighth on Poland’s all-time list with $1,799,511 in live earnings, generated September 17, 2026, behind Wiktor Malinowski, Dzmitry Urbanovich and Dominik Panka. His EPT Main Event cashes alone sit at $1,332,663, which is 75th on the EPT Main Event list. Card Player’s tour line still reads as three EPT cashes, two final tables and one title.

The year after the photo shoot did not look like a new profession. He won a $1,100 DeepStack event in Las Vegas on June 18, 2026 for $51,269, his biggest recorded score of 2026. He finished 31st in a $1,500 WSOP event in July 2026 for $19,200. At EPT Barcelona in August 2026 he cashed two mystery bounties for $2,216 and $4,907 and busted the Main Event with pocket kings. Those are the numbers of a player who still has a job.

THE 2026 SIDE BOOK

• Largest later score: $51,269 for winning the $1,100 DeepStack Championship event on June 18, 2026.
• WSOP: 31st in a $1,500 no-limit event in July 2026 for $19,200.
• Back in Barcelona: Two mystery-bounty cashes in August 2026 and a Main Event exit with kings.

Casino Malta is busy again. The WSOP Circuit opens there on September 25, 2026, a year after he lifted the EPT spade in the same building. Nothing in the public results says he quit sports betting. The bet he placed a decade ago was the job. The trophy is what that job, on that island, made room for.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who won the 2025 EPT Malta Main Event?

Tomasz Brzezinski of Poland won the €5,300 Main Event at Casino Malta on October 12, 2025, holding ten-club four-diamond against Mykhailo Ostash’s five-heart four-spade on the final of 14 heads-up all-ins. James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton called the streamed final table, and a full-day recording also ran on the PokerStars Live YouTube channel with Benjamin Spragg on the booth.

How large was the 2025 EPT Malta Main Event field?

The field was 898 entries, a Malta Main Event record, and the €4,355,300 pool paid 135 places. First prize was posted at €760,000 before heads-up, with €200,550 locked for the last five, figures that moved only after Brzezinski and Ostash chopped.

Did Brzezinski and Ostash make a deal?

Yes. When the two stacks evened at the start of heads-up, they agreed an even split of the remaining prize money and left €28,574 plus the trophy to play for, which is why the posted payouts read €631,632 and €603,058 rather than €760,000 and €474,650.

Is Tomasz Brzezinski a professional poker player?

He says he is not. He moved from Leszno to Malta about ten years before the win to work in sports betting, and for seven years he mostly played local events with buy-ins no higher than €1,000. He has described live poker as a passion he sometimes enjoys more than his actual work.

When was EPT last in Malta before 2025?

The previous EPT Malta Main Event was in October 2016 at Casino Portomaso, where Aliaksei Boika won €355,700 from 468 entries. The island also hosted two EPT Main Events in 2015, won by Jean Montury (€687,400, 895 entries) and Niall Farrell (€534,330, 651 entries).

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of a completed poker tournament, published for information only. It is not betting advice, investment advice, or a recommendation to play poker or sports betting, and it does not assess anyone’s chances in a future event. Readers who are considering gambling should consult a licensed gambling counsellor or a regulated operator’s safer-gambling tools, and should check local law, before they stake money. Prize figures, rankings and player statuses reflect the databases and official results cited here and can change if those records are updated.