diff --git a/litellm/router.py b/litellm/router.py
index 60e93a0526c..1eb2995f558 100644
--- a/litellm/router.py
+++ b/litellm/router.py
@@ -10701,7 +10701,6 @@ class Router:
 
     @staticmethod
     def _is_strategy_marker_deployment(deployment: Mapping[str, object]) -> bool:
-        """True when the deployment is a strategy-router pseudo-model (`auto_router/` prefixed)."""
         litellm_params: Final = deployment.get("litellm_params")
         if not isinstance(litellm_params, Mapping):
             return False
@@ -11354,7 +11353,6 @@ class Router:
         return filtered
 
     def _model_name_has_plain_deployments(self, model: str) -> bool:
-        """True when `model` also names regular (non strategy-router) deployments in the model_list."""
         indices: Final = self.model_name_to_deployment_indices.get(model) or ()
         return any(not self._is_strategy_marker_deployment(self.model_list[idx]) for idx in indices)
 
diff --git a/tests/test_litellm/test_router.py b/tests/test_litellm/test_router.py
index 640bd229b49..70c13600014 100644
--- a/tests/test_litellm/test_router.py
+++ b/tests/test_litellm/test_router.py
@@ -7608,6 +7608,9 @@ class TestTaggedAutoRouterOnSharedModelName:
             )
             assert deployment["litellm_params"]["model"] == "openai/gpt-4o"
 
+    def test_deployment_without_litellm_params_mapping_is_not_a_marker(self):
+        assert litellm.Router._is_strategy_marker_deployment({"model_name": "gpt4o"}) is False
+
 
 class TestGetAllowedFailsFromPolicy:
     def _make_router(self, **policy_kwargs) -> litellm.Router: