It’s not a new scam, its been going on for years and there’s a lot more to it than is shown in this short strip. When Kit Chellel and Jonathan Raab published articles about it in 2024, most poker players were disbelievers, thinking it unlikely that sites would pit real depositing players against bots.
While many players are aware of the dangers of playing on a bot infested site, there’s still not enough awareness of the house bot scam. Sites that are set up to trap less experienced recreational players (and deluded regs who think they can beat the bots) are flourishing.
Most poker media don’t like to write about house bots, but some stories are hard to ignore, such as the recent uncovering by MTT Database Review of thousands of seemingly house deployed bots on the site QQPK.
Further Reading
The Russian Bot Army that Conquered Online Poker by Kit Chellel on Bloomberg (paywalled)
A Further Investigation into the Existence of the Botfarm Corporation by Jonathan Raab on Poker.Pro