Recently, Kit Chellel published a research article exposing a massive bot operation in the online poker world of Russia. Although Chellel didn’t name any specific poker site, he interviewed people working in the alleged organization behind the operation, called the Bot Farm Corporation (BFC).
Jonathan Raab, the founder of the Grosvenor Poker Tour, further explored Chellel’s research and exposed a poker site allegedly using bots.
Kit Chellel’s Research Article on Bot Farming
In his article, Chellel revealed that bot operators used to operate independently, but over time, they consolidated into a single organization. Their aim was to keep recreational players at the poker table, so they began selling off-the-shelf bots to poker operators, marketing it as a way to “improve the player experience.”
The Bot Farm Corporation deploys less skilled bots against weaker players, allowing the weaker players to win some money and encouraging them to continue depositing on the poker site. Meanwhile, poker pros face stronger bots, causing them to lose and eventually leave the platform. Chellel interviewed some BFC employees who detailed their methods and confirmed the existence of bots in online poker.
Jonathan Raab’s Research
Earlier this year, Jonathan Raab joined an affiliate site called PokerWired as an editor. His job was to write poker room reviews, and he was asked to review the poker site JackPoker, a site he had never heard of before. To write a thorough review, Raab started playing on the platform.
While playing, he noticed that the site consistently missed its tournament guarantees, despite having 1,500-2,000 players online 24/7. In March, JackPoker announced its online poker series Nuclear 4s, featuring a $44,000 guaranteed prize pool for the $40 Main Event.
Raab was confident the series wouldn’t meet its guarantees, as it required 1,212 entries to cover the guarantee. He registered for the tournament and waited. On the day of the event, he saw he was the only registered player. However, five minutes before the tournament began, 30 players suddenly joined.
As the game started, Raab noticed aggressive play at his table, with players 3-betting, 4-betting, and going all-in with marginal and weak hands. He was eventually eliminated when his premium pairs couldn’t hold up against a garbage hand. After being eliminated, Raab was surprised to see the tournament not only met its guarantee by the end of late registration but exceeded it with over 1,400 entries.
Curious, Raab dug deeper into the bot issues and discovered through the TwoPlusTwo Forum and Russian poker forum GipsyTeam that JackPoker was owned by the Bot Farm Corporation (BFC), which Russia’s EvenBet developed. BFC had since rebranded as deeplay.io, a company that proudly advertised its development of robot animators for card game sites, designed to attract users and “improve user experience.”
JackPoker Issues a Statement
Regarding these allegations, PokerOrg asked JackPoker several questions, to which they provided generic responses.
JackPoker responded to Raab’s accusations: “We take the allegations made recently about our Nuclear 4s tournament extremely seriously. The series ran from 12 February to 3 March, and during this time, we received no negative player feedback or concerns of any kind from our Anti-Toxic or customer support teams. We are reviewing gameplay and entry times for this series, and will act accordingly if any unusual play patterns are verified.”
JackPoker also clarified: “JackPoker is not, and has never been, owned by Deeplay. Jack Entertainment is a wholly owned private entity with no corporate shareholding.”
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