TechStuff The Story: Russian Bots vs American Gamblers
Sep 10, 2025
Kit Chellel, a Bloomberg writer specializing in gambling and technology, dives into the secretive world of Russian bots that infiltrated online poker. He shares captivating tales from Siberia to Armenia, revealing how tech-savvy students created bots that blurred the lines between skill and cheating. The conversation explores the rise of online gambling, the impact of bots on gameplay, and the challenges they pose to fairness in the poker industry. Listeners will gain insight into how these automated players manipulate the gambling landscape and the future of poker.
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Online Gambling Became Mainstream
- Online gambling normalized due to mobile access and regulatory changes.
- Kit Chellel says convenience and lobbying made gambling mainstream.
Pro Defeated By A Suspicious Opponent
- A top online pro named Farewell lost to a seemingly unknown Russian and suspected cheating.
- Kit tracked that loss to a Siberian-built PokéBot system that made suspiciously non-human decisions.
From Siberian Students To Bot Farmers
- Bot farm founders were nerdy students from technical colleges in Omsk who started by playing human-to-human.
- They then built software to run 24/7, scale accounts, and eventually made millions.
