ART-Poker
Enthusiast
Silver Level
moots
by Casino.us
Loyaler
The video does not mention PokerStars or GG Poker.
F
fundiver199
Legend
Loyaler
But these are the sites, where he played and probably lost money, so he is mad at them. So mad he even closed his account on PokerStars back in 2022, but then apparently began to play on GG Poker instead.
J
Jpatch
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Yes. Bots are a thing. The industry will never admit to it unless people get hand data together and invest their time to run an investigation that will likely lead to not much.
The most likely result will be banned accounts and new ones getting created…
Regardless, collusion is also a thing. 2 players teaming up on a 6 handed cash table is going create a big potential advantage. Same goes for late stage tournaments!
The most likely result will be banned accounts and new ones getting created…
Regardless, collusion is also a thing. 2 players teaming up on a 6 handed cash table is going create a big potential advantage. Same goes for late stage tournaments!
Zorba
27
Platinum Level
P
pokerV
Enthusiast
Silver Level
What We Know So Far (News & Reports)
Honestly, the more you dig into this “Russian bot army” story, the more unsettling it gets. Bloomberg’s investigation and other write-ups make it pretty clear that this isn’t just a handful of grinders using scripts — it’s a full-blown industrial operation. A group out of Omsk, the “Bot Farm Corporation,” has been building extremely advanced poker bots, some of which even competed under the name Neo in AI poker competitions.
What really stands out is the scale. Leaked chats and forum logs point to hundreds of operators, VPN-masked accounts spread across multiple countries, and bots designed to mimic human play patternsso they blend in. And apparently, these guys weren’t just using the bots to win quietly — they’ve been pitching the tech commercially, even to poker sites, trying to legitimize a model where players could end up facing bots as a standard part of the game.
Between alleged country-hopping accounts, neural-network-based strategies, and reports that they purposely insert “human errors” to avoid detection, it paints a worrying picture. And the community reaction shows it too — forums, Reddit, and news sites all echo the same concern: if this is as big as it looks, online poker’s trust foundation is in trouble.
What This Could Mean Long-Term
If this continues unchecked, the long-term implications for online poker could be massive. The biggest danger is the erosion of trust. Poker only works when people believe they’re competing on fair ground. Once players start asking “Is this a person or a bot?” every time someone tanks a simple decision, the whole ecosystem becomes shaky.
And the scary part? Poker sites have a financial incentive to look the other way — bots create liquidity, run up volume, and guarantee rake. Even if a site isn’t intentionally supporting bots, the economic incentive is there: more hands, more money. That’s why I worry the industry might drift toward a subtle “house-run poker” model where the majority of opponents aren’t human.
Over time, the players most at risk — recreational ones — will bleed fastest. If casual players keep losing to super-human consistency from bots, they’ll get frustrated and leave. And that dries up the entire ecosystem, because poker needs a steady base of non-pros to stay healthy.
Worst case, we end up with something like online chess: humans still play, but at the high end everything is engine-influenced, and at the low end you can never be sure who’s real. For poker, where money is directly on the line, that’s a disaster.
What Can We (Players) Do About It?
This is the part where things get tricky, because individually we don’t have the tools poker sites do. But we aren’t powerless. For starters, calling attention to suspicious patterns — weirdly consistent play styles, 24/7 activity, multiple accounts with identical stats — is important. Reporting helps build pressure and evidence, even if sites move slowly.
Second, players can push for transparency. Sites should have to publish anti-bot statistics, detection reports, and maybe even allow third-party audits. If they refuse or dodge, that says a lot. Voting with your feet — leaving sites that stay silent — is sometimes the only leverage we have.
But maybe the bigger question is: What can we do as a community to spot and deter bot networks?Are there tools players could build? Should poker forums crowdsource suspicious hand histories? Should streamers and influencers put more pressure on the sites?
Because one thing’s clear: ignoring the issue won’t make it go away. If anything, silence just makes it easier for these bot networks to grow. So yeah — I’d really like to hear how others think we could push back. Is there a realistic way for players to help enforce fair play? Or are we at a point where we need a completely new model for online poker integrity?
Honestly, the more you dig into this “Russian bot army” story, the more unsettling it gets. Bloomberg’s investigation and other write-ups make it pretty clear that this isn’t just a handful of grinders using scripts — it’s a full-blown industrial operation. A group out of Omsk, the “Bot Farm Corporation,” has been building extremely advanced poker bots, some of which even competed under the name Neo in AI poker competitions.
What really stands out is the scale. Leaked chats and forum logs point to hundreds of operators, VPN-masked accounts spread across multiple countries, and bots designed to mimic human play patternsso they blend in. And apparently, these guys weren’t just using the bots to win quietly — they’ve been pitching the tech commercially, even to poker sites, trying to legitimize a model where players could end up facing bots as a standard part of the game.
Between alleged country-hopping accounts, neural-network-based strategies, and reports that they purposely insert “human errors” to avoid detection, it paints a worrying picture. And the community reaction shows it too — forums, Reddit, and news sites all echo the same concern: if this is as big as it looks, online poker’s trust foundation is in trouble.
What This Could Mean Long-Term
If this continues unchecked, the long-term implications for online poker could be massive. The biggest danger is the erosion of trust. Poker only works when people believe they’re competing on fair ground. Once players start asking “Is this a person or a bot?” every time someone tanks a simple decision, the whole ecosystem becomes shaky.
And the scary part? Poker sites have a financial incentive to look the other way — bots create liquidity, run up volume, and guarantee rake. Even if a site isn’t intentionally supporting bots, the economic incentive is there: more hands, more money. That’s why I worry the industry might drift toward a subtle “house-run poker” model where the majority of opponents aren’t human.
Over time, the players most at risk — recreational ones — will bleed fastest. If casual players keep losing to super-human consistency from bots, they’ll get frustrated and leave. And that dries up the entire ecosystem, because poker needs a steady base of non-pros to stay healthy.
Worst case, we end up with something like online chess: humans still play, but at the high end everything is engine-influenced, and at the low end you can never be sure who’s real. For poker, where money is directly on the line, that’s a disaster.
What Can We (Players) Do About It?
This is the part where things get tricky, because individually we don’t have the tools poker sites do. But we aren’t powerless. For starters, calling attention to suspicious patterns — weirdly consistent play styles, 24/7 activity, multiple accounts with identical stats — is important. Reporting helps build pressure and evidence, even if sites move slowly.
Second, players can push for transparency. Sites should have to publish anti-bot statistics, detection reports, and maybe even allow third-party audits. If they refuse or dodge, that says a lot. Voting with your feet — leaving sites that stay silent — is sometimes the only leverage we have.
But maybe the bigger question is: What can we do as a community to spot and deter bot networks?Are there tools players could build? Should poker forums crowdsource suspicious hand histories? Should streamers and influencers put more pressure on the sites?
Because one thing’s clear: ignoring the issue won’t make it go away. If anything, silence just makes it easier for these bot networks to grow. So yeah — I’d really like to hear how others think we could push back. Is there a realistic way for players to help enforce fair play? Or are we at a point where we need a completely new model for online poker integrity?