April 16th, 2014
This amounts to a follow up article on previous Phil Ivey escapade articles I've commented on - see
Crockfords denies Ivey millions and
Phil Ivey: is he entitled to his winnings?
It seems at the time Ivey was taking on Crockfords casino in London, he was busy elsewhere. Borgata Casino in Atlantic City has now joined the growing list of casinos that have suffered a multi-milion pound loss to the famous poker player's baccarat scheme, and are now seeking redress through the courts. As per Yahoo News, whose title here is arguably a bit misleading:
Borgata casino lawsuit: Gambler cheated, won $9.6M
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — An Atlantic City casino is suing a big-time gambler, claiming he won $9.6 million in a card-cheating scheme in baccarat.
The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Phillip Ivey Jr., considered one of the best poker players in the world.
This seems to be an absolute facsimile copy of the Crockfords event:
The lawsuit alleges Ivey and an associate exploited a defect in cards made by a Kansas City manufacturer that enabled them to sort and arrange good cards in baccarat. The technique gave him an unfair advantage on four occasions between April and October 2012, the casino asserted in its lawsuit. The casino claims the technique, called edge sorting, violates New Jersey casino gambling regulations. Its senior vice president, Joe Lupo, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims the cards, manufactured by Gemaco Inc., were defective in that the pattern on the back of them was not uniform. The cards have rows of small white circles designed to look like the tops of cut diamonds, but the Borgata claims some of them were only a half diamond or a quarter of one.
The lawsuit claims that Ivey and his companion instructed a dealer to flip cards in particular ways, depending on whether it was a desirable card in baccarat. The numbers 6, 7, 8 and 9 are considered good cards. Bad cards would be flipped in different directions, so that after several hands of cards, the good ones were arranged in a certain manner — with the irregular side of the card facing in a specific direction — that Ivey could spot when they came out of the dealer chute.
The lawsuit claims Ivey wanted the cards shuffled by an automatic shuffling machine, which would not alter the way each card was aligned.
(more)
Since this is a carbon copy of the previous case, my opinion remains likewise identical: the casino was lax in its procedures and should, in all fairness, take the hit. Ivey did not "cheat", as the Yahoo piece incorrectly suggests. At the same time, he might do worse than focussing his attention away from what is hard to not categorise as little more than a gambling scam and back on his poker game.
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