A video showing what looks like a poker bot farm is going viral, prompting several online poker companies to respond. Shared by Martin Zamani on X (Twitter), the video shows dozens of computers playing online poker.

“Massive bot farm on Ignition/Bovada,” Zamani wrote in his post. “They’ve know about for ages and done nothing. It’s highstakes and this isn’t the entire operation either and they just don’t care. Enough is enough of this shit. I don’t think this is happening on other major sites either.”

He noted he didn’t film the video, and it’s unknown where it came from.

As of Tuesday afternoon, a post about the video reached the front page of Reddit, and Zamani’s post is approaching 800,000 views. It’s a good bet that it’s going to hit national news sometime this week.

Several online sites took to X to reassure their customers that they do everything they can to protect the security of players.

PokerStars included the video in a post that reads: “PokerStars believes its customers deserve a safe and reliable place to play online poker against real people.

Our game integrity team made up of 60 specialists: ex-professional poker players, qualified data scientists and statistical analysts, uses purpose-built software to detect, investigate and resolve potential occurrences of collusion, multi-accounting or prohibited software use. See https://psta.rs/GameIntegrity.”

And WPTGlobal had this to say: “As much as we mess around on here, we care A LOT about security and preventing our players from ever having to deal with shit like this.

To get technical: we have a state-of-the-art bot detection system that leverages deep learning to classify AI-generated strategy & behavior in real-time.

Our models scrutinize gameplay patterns by referencing a combination of our RL gameplay models, game statistics, and player behavior to discern between human and bot actions, allowing us to effectively differentiate the two.”

Ignition responds

Three days after Zamani’s post, Ignition responded on X today. It noted that the video is from 2022, and all the bots have long been suspended. Here’s the statement in full:

“We understand there may be concerns raised by a recent video circulating online and want to provide clarity.

Ignition does not tolerate cheating or any behavior of any kind that undermines player security in any way. Our first order of business is always to protect our players, and any activity taking place that undermines the integrity of our shared poker network or any other product is directly counter to how we operate.

The video in question is outdated, dating back to 2022. All accounts shown, along with associated accounts uncovered during review, have already been terminated.

Customer security and fair play are central to Ignition Casino’s mission and values. We actively monitor the network as well as our products and respond quickly when issues are identified.

Community feedback plays an important role in how we improve. In the past, concerns around late registration logic led to meaningful changes designed to strengthen fairness and customer protection.

Our players are what makes Ignition a destination for poker, we encourage your continued feedback so that we may continue to offer you the best service possible.”