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A federal court in New York just ordered Papaya Gaming to pay the skill-based gaming platform 719 million dollars for running a false advertising scheme.
Now let me explain how this was made possible. Papaya promised millions of players that they were competing against real human opponents in fair matches. It turns out a bunch of those opponents were bots programmed to win.
How the dispute started
If you don’t know Papaya Gaming, they’re the creators behind the popular mobile titles like Solitaire Cash. The company spent years advertising its platform as a place where real people could play skill-based games and win cash prizes.
When Skillz, which is a competitor, dragged Papaya to court in 2024, they discovered that between 2021 and 2024, Papaya deployed more than 13 million computer bots on its platform. That meant digital bots actually outnumbered the 11 million real human players on the app.
Even more shocking, out of the 6.7 billion dollars in advertised prize money, about 70 percent went straight back to Papaya because their own bots won the tournaments. That is roughly 4.7 billion dollars in cash that real players never had a chance to even sniff.
How the bots were rigged to keep you playing
Papaya kept throwing basic filler bots into lobbies so nobody was stuck in a waiting room. But the real psychological mind games came from their custom pity bots. If you were getting crushed on a brutal losing streak, the app would dispatch a bot programmed to lose on purpose. Giving you that sweet taste of fake victory and having your mood high with your wallet open for another cash deposit.
In some 20 player tournaments, court records showed that 19 of the contestants were actually computer code, leaving one unsuspecting human fighting an entire room of secret robots.
This was not Skillz’s first bot rodeo
If this whole story sounds familiar, that is because Papaya Gaming is not the only company Skillz has accused of using bots.
Skillz originally sued AviaGames, the maker of Pocket7Games, back in 2021. During that investigation, Skillz discovered that AviaGames was also tricking real players into competing against computer programs.
Internal company messages showed that AviaGames gave their bots funny code names like Cucumbers and Guides. Even so, they built a specialized bot called a shark robot. That specific bot was designed to hunt down human players who were winning too much cash and intentionally beat them so the company could keep the prize money.
In February 2024, a federal jury in California found AviaGames guilty and awarded Skillz $42.9 million. Shortly after, in April 2024, AviaGames agreed to pay an $80 million total settlement to put both the patent fight and the bot lawsuit to sleep for good.
The jury sides with Skillz
Back in April 2026, a federal jury found Papaya guilty of violating false advertising laws and awarded Skillz 420 million dollars in actual damages.
This week, Federal Judge Denise Cote went even further. The court officially entered a 719 million dollar judgment to strip away all of Papaya’s unjust profits. The court also ordered Papaya to pay around 10 million dollars to cover legal fees and extra court costs.
Papaya was hit with an extra $10 million bill for attorney fees.
Both sides react to the ruling
Skillz founder and chief executive Andrew Paradise celebrated the ruling as proof that fair and meaningful competition still matters.
“We founded this industry and built its biggest and best company on one value above all others: honor,” said Andrew Paradise. When growth stalled, investors decided our moat was a story. It was not. In a winner-take-most market, Papaya could not beat us fairly, so it used bots to fake the competition we invented. This judgment sets the record straight. The moat was real. Fourteen years in, on our path to one hundred, Skillz is back to defining what this industry was built for: fair, fun, and meaningful competition.”
On the other side, Papaya expressed disappointment with the outcome. A company spokesperson noted that they are exploring all options, including filing an appeal.
“Papaya remains committed to continuing to lead and grow the mobile gaming industry with integrity and transparency, delivering exciting skill-based fair competition to our players,” the company said.
