Most of the people on 2+2 probably have an experience on "app games" like PokerBros, ClubGG and similar.

Even though these platforms have lost a lot of their popularity in the last year or so, I still think there is a ton of regulars and recreationals playing on these platforms.
For this reason, I would like to present my point of view on these platforms, why I think they are ruining online poker and what can be done about it.

Upsides
The club games have (or used to have) a lot of upsides. These games were a viable option for the millions of people who don't have access to regulated online poker (like US citizens and many European residents). Another upside was that the games used to be very soft, despite the high rake, a large part of the player pool were recreational players. This is an obvious upside, since it makes the game much more beatable and many regulars are willing to use the shitty software because they just win much more.

Downsides
The obvious downside is the lack of regulation and the possibility of getting scammed, which was always very likely (and still is) especially during times when the traffic was dying down and many agents and clubs decided to exitscam. This is always going to be an issue, because you have to trust someone with your money. A lot of the agents or club owners are poker players themselves, often time degens and not the most trustworthy people.

Recent changes - bot infestation
In the last year and a half, a ton of new clubs and unions popped up out of nowhere. Anyone who is a online poker regular and observes the lobbies of the biggest poker rooms like GG, Stars, iPoker and simiar knows how much traffic usually runs on the higher stakes during different parts of the day. It is almost impossible to find reasonable traffic outside GGpoker on 1000NL and higher. Yet, these random poker clubs and unions often times have a bunch of tables running on 1000NL, 2000NL and 5000NL. They all run every day, during the same time frames, tables are filled and seem to always have at least one recreational player.

The problem is that all this traffic on apps is a scam. There are multiple websites online that publicly promote their "poker bots" for these apps. Just go ahead and google "clubgg bots" and see the results that show up. Usually these sites offer different "packages" of these bot services. There are "ecology" packages which just fill the tables with bots who seemingly don't lose or win any money, and then there are packages that are aimed at colluding and actually winning money from the players. The biggest scam here is that the bot packages include "bot fish" profiles which are bots that have fishy stats (like 50/5 VPIP/PFR) which serve as baits to lure in the regs. These bots are playing bad preflop, but play GTO postflop and also collude with the other bots on the table.

Obviously, this would never be possible without the direct involvement of the club/union owners. These bots are ran and bought BY THE UNION OWNERS and CLUB OWNERS to scam their players. The union or club owner has total oversight of who plays in his club and they can ban or remove any bad actors or bots, but this isn't happening - they are paying for them to operate in their union.

This creates the environment of "honey pot" games where regulars and recreationals alike join to play, because they either see good traffic or "crazy action". They get fooled into believing the game is fair and healthy, when in reality they are battling a botring that colludes and cheats against them. They end up losing money to rake (which goes to the union owner, who operates the botring) and any money lost to the bots is also gone forever.

Why is this a problem and why should YOU care?
Apart from the obvious negative moral implications of this scam, this environment ruins the game for everyone and YOU should care too. A lot of recreationals play in these pools, and instead of having a fair chance at winning sometimes, they just get bankrupted by the bots over and over again, until they never play poker again. This affects the ecology of games on every site, even the regulated sites, because people who have been absolutely destroyed on the tables are very unlikely to play poker again. Remember - every dollar that was lost to these bots could have been instead used in a real game with real players (maybe even you) on a normal, fair site.

This has long term terrible implications on the poker ecosystem and only deepens the problem we are already facing - tough competition and not enough recreationals even on micro/low stakes. Abolition of these scam games would be a blessing to every legitimate poker player.

The solution
How come the developers of these poker apps don't do something against it? Simply put - they don't care. They are selling a subscription based product and don't make money directly off of the rake paid in these games (since technically it is not money but play chips). Despite what many club owners and agents claim, there is no real in house security on these apps and the bot operators are facing absolutely zero risk of repercussion from the side of the app developers.

The only solution to this problem is to either avoid these games or to force the developers to implement at least some kind of security features to avoid the blatant cheating. This is easier said than done, but I believe starting this discussion might help this problem in some way (at least making people more aware that this is a real threat).

Conclusion
At the end of the day, every player is responsible for where they play. You should be very careful who you trust with your money. Club agents are extremely scummy and will tell you anything to get your rake cut. If an agent presents you this long ass list of apps, it immediately a red flag. In my opinion, agents are 100% responsible for the quality of the games they offer and ignorance is no excuse. Be careful out there and always know that any 24/7 traffic on these apps especially on mid stakes and higher is very likely to be a scam, not an "exclusive private club". Just try chatting with the bots. You will get zero responses. If something feels off, it probably is a scam.

Now there are a few legitimate clubs/unions, but they usually have smaller stakes, the games feel natural, people chat a lot in the in-game chat and the stakes are never high. The traffic is also usually limited to specific time frames.

What is your point of view on this problem and what is your proposed solution?

Yeah this is happening. Huge problem on clubGG at the moment

Well stated, have personally experienced the honeypotting. The 3 or 4 times I've been offered to play in apps as a ms/hs plo player, the pitch has ALWAYS been along the lines of "look how insane the games are" "you could make so much money" etc. A problem I find is most players are quite lazy and will look for the path of least resistance and are always looking for the next big spot with whales before considering working harder at studying or adapting by switching games/formats/playing live etc. I play PLO online but have heard that the state of online NL has gotten really bad really fast and I can understand it.

Don't get me wrong, game selection is crucial but when you start getting into some really shady spaces trying to find the next jackpot, you become the product. IMO, if you're not winning anymore on a desired stake across regulated and normal sites, the chance you've just fallen out of favor and aren't strong enough is very high. The chance you're being cheated is blown out of proportion on real sites. But on apps at hs? Forget about it. Many club/union owners and higher ups in this space are funneling heaps of money to be degens in various aspects in life. You don't think they'll pay for some bots to break no laws and pillage innocent players so they can blast in pits or buy more drugs? Very ignorant.

As far as a solution goes? It's really difficult. You could try to be martyr and go around and warn anyone playing on apps and such? I don't think it puts a serious dent in anything but when I was in a WSOP event someone was shilling an app club to a guy and I stepped in to throw in some warnings and my view on it. Did I look a little intrusive and potentially causing some tension? Sure. Do I care? Not really, these agents aren't your friends. They just want a piece of the rake you contribute. It's just about money. These agents either know about what's going on and are REALLY not your friend if they're honeypotting you into it, or they're ignorant about it and still just are dying to get a cut of your rake. Personally, if someone I considered a friend in the poker space shills me an app I give them a swift shutting down of the idea, explain why it's a terrible space, and that if they continue to try to push it on me I'll know they value trying to make some money off of me more than knowing me. Yes, it's quite abrasive and direct but as someone who's passionate about the game and it functioning at a fair level...these app unions being filled to the brim with cheating and absolute grifting scumbags poaching the recs that would otherwise play on real sites is disgusting. If you're going to poach whales into playing your game to make money off of your absurd rake, the LEAST you can do is offer them a fair game. These scumbags are failing to even do that.

Not to mention when the few times players have offered me app clubs and saying the games are insanely whale-heavy and that if I'm successful playing 500-2k plo on main sites I'd make an absolute killing there I offer them this: "If you think I'm winning some absolutely obscene winrate and I detest the security and problems on apps, get me a deal with a complete freeroll but you can have a cut of what I'll make. This way, if you really do believe I can make a killing, you can make some for getting me in while I don't have to have a risk to my bottom line. None of them come even close to accepting it, even when I show them the math of let's say winning 20bb/100 at whatever "super whale" games there are which is honestly a conservative estimate if the games are truly that "crazy and worth it man"

I don't know what I can do personally other than slander apps and tell people to stay away from them and to without fail, interject when anyone is being shilled a honeypot app game. I don't care how abrasive and tension increasing it is.

Is there an estimate on how much overall online poker market share clubs have?

I agree with almost everything you stated. My experience has been similar. Agents always shilling the game and trying to convince me, even send me screenshots of "how much they won" and "these people go all in pre with 72o" and similar stupid ****.

There definitely are a few legitimate unions on apps, but it is usually very easy to spot the honeypots. Mid-high stakes, full lobby, around the clock action, super high rakeback deals. These are all red flags.

I doubt there is an estimate. I think when apps originally started, and when they had their primetime during the pandemic, the share was quite high. I think having real data on this is impossible, but the market share was non-negligible especially in the US market, due to lack of regulated options.

Now, with the botting problem, it is impossible to determine how many real, actual humans are playing these apps. I think the market share drastically decreased in the past year and a half. If you can't win on a site, and something feels off, you are most likely going to switch sites or just quit poker. I think this was the case for a lot of regs AND fish (which is really bad for poker) in the past months.

It is really sad that there is no real legal action that can be taken against these cheating honey potting scumbags.