My Research
For the past six months, I have been independently researching this topic and during that time, I accidentally discovered that Kit was also working on it when he contacted me about an unrelated story concerning cheating in cash games in London. He was advised to speak with me by the former general manager of “Victoria Casino,” where I worked from 2008-2010, and also co-managed the “Grosvenor UK Poker Tour” (which I founded in 2007).
We shared our findings and realized that both of us, each in our own way, had uncovered the same information. In some areas, Kit made more progress than I did, for example, he spoke directly with some of the figures from BFC and its alleged satellite companies. However, I discovered things he hadn't found, things that were publicly available online. I shared my discoveries with him.
Before revealing the evidence I uncovered regarding possible connections between BFC and online poker sites still operating today, I would like to briefly explain how and why I started investigating this in the first place.
PokerWired
In January of this year, I started a new job as the editor of a related site, “PokerWired.” My duties included writing reviews of poker rooms, and shortly after starting this job, I was asked to write one about “Jack Poker,” which opened in 2022. I had not heard of this site before, but to write the review, I played on the site for several weeks to get a feel for how the software worked.
According to the site's/table counter displayed on the page, I was surprised to see that there were 1,500-2,000 players on this site at any given time. Initially, the most striking thing was the large deposit bonuses offered by the site, including “instant money” that could be used immediately in cash games without having to spend it on buy-ins. The next obvious thing was the size of the tournament overlays. Every day there were huge amounts of missed guarantees accumulated, with no apparent overlay management at all. The same guarantees were available day after day. In the evening session tournaments alone, there was a shortfall of $5,000 or more in guarantees per day, and on Sundays, it grew to $15,000.
After a while, I also noticed unusual playing patterns in cash games and tournaments. I also wrote articles about the promotions on the site, highlighting the overlay value in multi-table tournaments (MTT).
Nuclear 4s Series Main Event
In March, “Jack Poker” launched the first online series I had seen since starting my new role. It was called the “Nuclear 4s Series,” and its main event was a $40 buy-in main event with a $44,000 guarantee. I thought it had no chance of meeting its guarantee.
To meet the guarantee, 1,212 participants were needed. I thought the site certainly didn't have enough liquidity to achieve this. The highest number I had seen on the site at that time was 2,500 players online, with only a few regular tournaments having more than 200 participants, and almost all tournaments repeatedly exceeding guarantees.
I bought in advance, a few days before, and was the first registered player. On the morning of the main event, I logged in to see how many other players had joined. I was still the only registered player.
About 30 minutes before the MTT started, I logged in again. I was still the only registered player. It was a bit strange, but no matter, players would surely start buying tickets soon. If I remember correctly, the site counter showed about 1,700 players. A huge influx was supposed to start, or so I thought…
Ten minutes before the start, I checked again, and still, no one had registered. Now I was worried. Maybe no one else would join, and the tournament would be canceled because the minimum player threshold wouldn't be reached? I don't remember exactly what that threshold was, but it was small – maybe 8 players were needed to start the tournament.
Five minutes before the start, a few more players finally joined, and I breathed a sigh of relief when, just three minutes before the start, the tournament reached the minimum threshold.
Before taking my seat to play, I went to get a drink and a snack. By the time the tournament started, about 30 players had registered. What happened next was a staggering event.
As the game began, the players at my table seemed very aggressive from the start. There were many three and four bets, sometimes followed by “all-in,” but most often everyone folded. Then some players started making deposits, and every few hands, there were 2 or 3 “all-ins.” Most often, both/all players had piles of “junk” or very weak hands.
About 10 minutes into the game, I looked at the lobby. There were over 120 entries, and about 20 exits already. I was out in 25 minutes. I had a top pair against some junk that openly shoved against me, and he got there.
I returned to the lobby, thinking about re-entering. There were now almost 300 entries. Wow, that grew quickly, I thought. I looked at the site counter, but it still showed a very similar number of logged-in players as at the start of the tournament.
I sat and watched the lobby for a while – the number of participants seemed to be constantly increasing: 10-11 players per minute.
Instead of rejoining, I sat and watched for a while. My jaw dropped wide open, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. For the next hour, players kept entering at the same rate – 10-11 players per minute, with no deviations. I frequently checked the site counter, but it always remained in the same place, not moving at all, even slightly decreasing.
About 30 minutes before the end of late registration, there were over 1,000 participants in the tournament. Watching it, I thought, these must surely be bots, or is the site adding them to reduce the overlay size? But surely this will end soon, and there will eventually be a 15-20% overlay, like in most of their regular MTT tournaments.
But no, they reached the guarantee with less than 20 minutes left before the end of late registration, but players kept flooding in at the same rate until the very end of late registration, with over 1,400 participants.
Connecting the Dots to the Bots
Suspecting that “Jack Poker” was infested with bots, possibly installed by the site itself, I started reading the “TwoPlusTwo” thread about bots and the alleged Botfarm Corporation, which led me to a 92-page long thread on the Russian poker forum “GypsyTeam.” It was a long story explaining the history of this operation, which lasted for many years.
On page 91, I came across a post that, understandably, shocked me, as it would most first-time readers. You can read the entire post here.
It also described a more recent BFC event that Kit did not report on, but which is arguably the most important part of this story. The entry names “Jack Poker” as a directly BFC-owned operation.
When I spoke with Kit (in May), he was unaware of this recently announced report and the subsequent development of the story. At that time, he had not yet conducted the interview with BFC employees that he describes in the article. This information did not make it into his final edit.
I wish he hadn't, but now I have the responsibility to continue this story. It is very important that this information is published so that players can decide for themselves where they choose to play online poker and whether they should continue playing at all?
The most important part of the entry on page 91 is as follows:
“Ecosystem” – a partnership with game organizers. The business line shares profits with them from winning bots and strives to minimize the negative impact on amateur users' experience.
“Eco SaaS” was a business model belonging to the ‘Ecosystem' business line, which in April 2022 was split into two independent business lines: ‘Eco SaaS' and ‘JackPoker'.
“JackPoker” is a proprietary poker room where the team independently manages all processes, attracts visitor traffic, and provides user support services.
This is quite a straightforward statement, clearly stating in the report without any doubt that “Jack Poker” is BFC or at least its subsidiary.
The publisher claimed to have received this information from an internal page of the “Deeplay” website. However, it is still just a forum entry, proving nothing. It was initially posted in July 2023, but no one outside of this “GypsyTeam” topic and the related “Telegram” group really talked about it.
Even the “Confessions of Bot Farmers” style article written by Kit proves little, as his word against the word of the poker community can easily dismiss it as sensationalism. Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad Kit published this article, and I believe that because of it, many people will now take it more seriously, but I was disappointed that it did not detail the current situation.
Internet Research
After spending a good week browsing through TwoPlusTwo and GypsyTeam websites, I got a good overview of the whole story. I used various methods to start connecting the dots with bots, mostly using the “WayBackMachine” to view sites that were allegedly associated with BFC and had been deleted. It was already a very compelling story that seemed much more than just a crazy conspiracy theory, as some poker forum participants criticized it.
I decided to leave the forums and see if I could find any more significant evidence online that could link Jack Poker to BFC.
Amazingly, it was very easy to find them. I discovered some important information almost immediately, literally within 2 minutes of starting this stage of the investigation by simply typing “deeplay jack poker”.
On the second page of results, I found an apparently open “Jack Poker” website and test environment server. This link has now been removed from Google search, and although the URL still exists, access to it is closed. However, the “WayBackMachine” still has a copy of it, which can be viewed here.
Players connect to “Jack Poker” not through jackpoker dot com, as one might assume. This site is a partner site that provides links to the actual “Jack Poker” online poker site. “Jack Poker” itself uses only mirror URLs, such as jack-playcard dot com.
“Deeplay” Website Mission
The first page of the “Deeplay” website lists the company's goals:
“We create robot animators for intelligent card games: poker, bridge, mahjong, championships.
Animators create activity on the gaming platform, attracting users.
Deeplay's goal is to create a comfortable environment for players. Robots apply different strategies and symbols to maintain a balance of power. Amateurs lose less often to experienced users, enjoy the process, and stay in the game longer.”
Backlinks Reveal More
My next call was to check the backlinks to the deeplay.io website, which I did using free tools from ahrefs. One of the backlinks I found to the deeplay site was directed to a subdomain finder – a site where people can request to scan websites and see all subdomain URLs by performing a subdomain scan. I was led to a page where five separate scans of the “deeplay” website had been performed. The scans were dated from November 2023 to January 2024. I don't know who requested these scans, but they were there and can still be publicly viewed.
I checked all the scans, saved copies of them, and took a closer look. There were hundreds of pages, some of which had URLs with the names of poker sites I recognized. Here was also the previously found “Jack poker” backup server page, whose URL used the prefix jpws, as well as several other pages related to “Jack poker”. The only accessible page I found in these subdomains was the one that was included in the Google search list and which I had already found.
Poker Sites with Subdomain Pages in the Deeplay Domain
There were also several pages whose URLs started with recognizable poker site names, followed by bot-set.stage. Among the sites I recognized as poker rooms/apps were the following names:
- Pokersaint
- Clubgg
- Jack Poker
- Wepoker
- hhclub
- ppp Poker
- Infinity poker
- Poker Bros
Each of these sites had only one subdomain page, except for Jack Poker, which had several.
I was stunned to stumble right into this, but overall, it took less than an hour from the start of the investigation to find all this. I also found another piece of evidence that “Deeplay” and “Jack Poker” are one and the same: a job advertisement for a position at “Jack Poker” posted by a person with an email address at deeplay.io. This ad can be viewed here.
BFC Denies Links to “Jack Poker”
Is this irrefutable evidence? No, it is not, and in fact, Chellel was not comfortable posting links to any sites. He told me that BFC employees he had met denied that they were associated with “Jack Poker”, claiming that they once sold them an analytics package in the past, but that was all.
Was this the explanation they would have used if asked about the presence of “Jack Poker” on their subdomain? I'm not an internet engineer, so maybe all these pages are necessary for such an analysis package? It seems that these few pages of the Deeplay.io domain confirm most of the information provided on page 91 of the GypsyTeam topic.
I should add that the only site I have thoroughly investigated on this matter is Jack Poker. Besides these subdomain pages, I have no other evidence that could further link “Deeplay” with the other sites mentioned above.
New Deeplay Subdomain Check
Initially, I found subdomain scans from January 2024, as well as December and November 2023. However, I recently checked again and found a new scan conducted on July 30. Upon discovering this new scan, I compared it with the January scans. There were now additional pages related to Jack Poker, and some of them even used the full name Jack Poker instead of JPWS.
A new page related to “Full House Crypto,” which is a skin of Jack Poker, also appeared. Some of the previously mentioned poker sites, which previously had only one page, now have several.
It seemed to me that this contradicted what Kit had said to BFC about their involvement with Jack Poker, indicating that the connections continue, despite their exact nature.
Shortly after discovering this additional scan, less than a week ago, I contacted Kit again and told him that I was concerned that BFC had lied to him about their ongoing relationship with Jack Poker and that he should include it in the story. He replied that it was already too late. The article had already been submitted for printing and would be published in just a few days, on Friday, September 20.
Time to Hit the Road, Jack
I resigned from PokerWired shortly after finding the new subdomain links.
When I first found this information about Jack Poker in April, I asked my boss to remove it from PokerWired and all related content. Reluctantly, he did so, but continued to promote it on many of his other sites.
At the same time I found the new Deeplay scan (last week), I also learned that my boss had opened a new site dedicated solely to promoting Jack Poker (jp dot codes) without my knowledge. A few days later, I left the job.
PokerWired Owned the Jackpoker dot com URL
There is another part of this story that also needs to be included.
The Jackpoker dot com URL itself was not owned by Jack Poker, but by my boss from PokerWired! He said he saw it was still available when he first became their partner, bought it (with Jack Poker's consent), and simply promoted Jack Poker as a partner using links that led directly to the real (mirror) Jack Poker sites.
Although he was very skeptical about Jack Poker being a bad actor, he agreed to sell the URL back when I revealed my findings to him in April. However, nearly six months later, this process was still not fully completed, and in fact, the jp dot codes site, which was created only at the end of August, contains the same content as the Jackpoker dot com URL.
Despite assuring me that he was winding down operations, Jack Poker continued to be promoted on many of my boss's other sites, including several new sites that were created in the last 2-3 months. His affiliate sites promote more than 500 online betting companies, poker sites, online casinos, and sports betting sites, so I think he lacks some due diligence.
When asked about diligence, he indicated that he uses “trust signals” when making decisions about the brands he promotes. For example, things like the affiliate manager of an online site he already works with moving to a new venture, as was the case with Jack Poker.
I'm still not sure how much he is involved with Jack Poker. He assured me that he is just a publisher. When I later questioned the legitimacy of some additional new poker sites he wanted me to promote on PokerWired, his response was to ask me to stop questioning, saying he couldn't constantly justify his decisions to work with specific operators.
Other Steps for the Poker Community
I believe that the more this spreads, the more it will destroy real poker. The “solution” of bot sites for poker only benefits the operators, and nothing flows into the real poker economy. If the real players' poker economy loses its vital forces, it won't survive long. I've dedicated 20 years of my working career to this game, and I won't let it die without giving it a chance to recover.
How much of online poker is already made up of fake bot liquidity? 10%? 20%? 30%? More? How long will it take before it completely takes over the market if allowed to spread?
Sites seeking to distort what online poker should be are doing so only for profit. Bots are not the only way to solve online poker problems. If bots are indeed the only way for online poker to survive, maybe it should just die.
For a while, I held the ball, doing keepie-uppies with it for almost 6 months, waiting for Kit Chellel to publish before revealing what I have in this post.
Over the past six months, I also consulted with PokerPro CEO Jason Glatzer for support and advice, as he is both a friend and a respected figure in the poker industry. He was as concerned as I was when I showed him some of my research.
Now I'm stepping into the park and hoping that the broader poker community will step forward, lace up their boots, and not stop.
By disclosing this information, the poker community has the opportunity to take action, demand greater transparency from operators, and hold affiliates or live event organizers accountable for knowingly or unknowingly getting into bed with such bad actors.
Sites that actively or unknowingly collaborated with BFC must explain their actions.
Did they knowingly conspire with BFC to deceive their clients? Or were they themselves deceived? Or were they infiltrated without their knowledge?
Whatever the answers, the industry's inaction in addressing this issue so far is a mistake.
If I could find the information so easily, others should have found it too, and ultimately it always had to be revealed.
In the largest gambling companies I've worked for during my career, a lot of emphasis was placed on compliance and due diligence. Perhaps some of the better-reputed poker sites themselves discovered this information and chose to ignore it, fearing that consumer confidence would decrease across the industry?
In the last post on page 92 of the GypsyTeam (before the Bloomberg article was published), everything is laid out very succinctly:
“The problem is that if you sink a competitor with a bot scandal, the entire industry will lose its reputation, including you.”
When I first discovered this, I was convinced that other people must also be investigating it and that it would surely be made public soon. I never imagined it would take six months and eventually become a story I would have to break.
Not all poker sites are necessarily associated with this, and not all affiliates neglect their duties. There are many sites that focus heavily on fairness and strive to keep bots off their platforms. Some, like WPT Global, are looking for alternative ways to address poker ecology issues, such as categorizing players by skill level instead of using bots. These methods need to be supported and encouraged.
There are many affiliate sites that also take this issue seriously and do not just create tales about the security of some of the sites they promote. Good actors need to take action and disassociate themselves from online poker sites that have compromised themselves due to connections with BFC.
If you are the owner of poker affiliate sites and realize that you are promoting such brands, you should definitely terminate your partnership ties with such sites to protect your future and the long-term integrity of the industry.
Are you with me, or do you not mind that sites include bots in their games without informing their customers? I truly hope this won't be RIP for real players' online poker, but the doctor's prognosis doesn't look good.
Article Translation Information
This article is a translation of the original article published on PokerPro.cc titled “A Further Investigation into the Existence of the Botfarm Corporation“.
