Not all the stories in 2024 were positive and this year the threat of Bots was brought into sharp focus.
In January a ‘Botfarm’ that won $10 million on the WPN Network was exposed after a comprehensive investigation on the 2+2 forum.
Most of the $10 million is alleged to have been won in MTTs, with a smaller amount in cash games.
America’s Cardroom, the principal skin on the network, responded in one of the most bizarre ways possible. Team ACR Pros Chris Moneymaker and Ebony Kenney posted the following video below, where they offered $100,000 and a security job to anyone who can make a bot that doesn’t get caught within 5,000 hands:
Think we got a bot problem? We don’t. Prove us wrong and win 100k. Check the video for details.
1 winner only 👉 READY… SET… GO 💪 pic.twitter.com/ta6k9rEvlM— ACR Poker (@ACR_POKER) January 5, 2024
They quickly backtracked on the invite when it became abundantly clear that people were able to create working bots, not to mention the PR backlash they received.
What made matters worse was this was so soon after a super user was caught at GGPoker. This thankfully was because of a bug which was swiftly fixed, rather than something more nefarious.
In the summer an article by Bloomberg exposed another Russian bot farm as well as a known practice of some small online poker rooms using bots, not to cheat, but to boost liquidity.
The threat of bots is clearly the most pressing issue online poker has to deal with in 2025 and beyond.
CelestialPoker.com has never promoted the WPT Network or ACR, but felt it was important to bring this story to our audience’s attention.