Poker Writer
Poker player Martin Zamani shared a video on X on Saturday night that, according to him, depicts a “massive” bot farm active on Ignition Poker, an offshore poker site affiliated with Bovada. In the video, the cameraman wanders through a series of rooms, each with a large number of computers.
Ignition’s client is running on each screen, with one or two active tables and the tournament lobby. No human is operating any of the computers, but it is unclear whether any of the clients are taking any game action or simply timing out.
Zamani states in the post that “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.”
He clarified, however, that it is not his video and he did not give the context as to how he obtained it or who filmed it.
At Least 29 Computers Involved in Alleged ‘Bot Farm’
The video shows an unseen person walking around two rooms. PokerScout counted 29 monitors in the video, including laptop screens, desktop monitors, and televisions. Each has one or two tables open. There are three people in the video, including the unseen cameraperson. Two men appear briefly at the midway point — one sitting in a chair in the corner, wearing a mask, and another who signals to the camera to follow him into the next room.
The rooms contain a large number of power adaptors necessary to run the computers and monitors. There are numerous power cords running all over the ground in the hallways between the rooms. The room has low lighting, with only a few lava lamps. It has a few items of clothing hanging up on a rack and some food remnants in a garbage can. One of the video monitors has a Boston Celtics screensaver.
Ignition Regular Outlines Bot Issues
Several replies to Zamani’s video shared their experiences with Ignition and how they had run into issues with bot accounts while playing on the site.
One regular who is very familiar with the landscape of Ignition tournaments shared his experiences with the process to PokerScout:
In essentially every big tournament on the site, but especially those $100+, there will be a flood of late registrations just before close. Many of these are suspected bots and/or colluders. These late registering accounts begin stalling every hand. If they are at the same table, they’ll all stall out together, ensuring they all keep trading blinds while the tournament slowly gets closer to the money. Many will make the money with less than a big blind.
The min-cashes generally aren’t very large, but the tournaments pay well over 10% of the field, so just making a few bucks across dozens of accounts in dozens of tournaments can add up, and in the higher-stake tournaments, it’s several hundred bucks per account. The whole thing makes for not only a miserable playing experience but also ruins the integrity of the tournament.
The bot farm appears to be stalling out for min cashes, with the intention of doing so every day in dozens of tournaments, so that the min cashes add up.
Six-time WSOP bracelet winner Brian Hastings posted a series of Ignition videos in January and February of 2025 that showed suspicious hands that he said were evidence of collusion between accounts. In one video, an entire table checked down their hands, seemingly to enure nobody busted before the money.
Hastings then said that he had been in touch with Ignition after the videos. At the time, Ignition said they were investigating, but it seems not much has come from the investigation:
I have been in touch with Ignition this week, it does seem they are taking feedback seriously and making an attempt to investigate. That said, I don’t get the impression any real changes are imminent. Play at your own risk.
CoinPoker Bans Suspected Bot Accounts
In response to the new video from Zamani, CoinPoker outlined how it handles potential bots:
Ban early, ban quickly has been our approach with these bot rings, as we’ve said before on the 2+2 forums we’re proud that many regs and pros have noticed CoinPoker’s games are recognizably more legit and ‘human’ compared to some online poker sites.
CoinPoker said that in some cases, players may accuse them of banning too quickly, if anything. But the official account emphasized that it takes no chances with game security to avoid bot farm issues. The site also boasts sophisticated detection tools to help identify any potential bots quickly.
Zamani’s History With Whistleblowing
The video released on Saturday night had some extra zing to it thanks to the source. Who is Martin Zamani? Zamani was somewhat of a known regular tournament player before he became a big name in the poker world after accusing all-time money leader Bryn Kenney of ghosting, collusion, and controlling behavior of his horses. The story was the top poker story for several weeks in 2022, with several bizarre twists and turns, including frog poison.
Zamani continues to play in major poker events and is not affiliated with any poker brand.
