Phil Ivey will know in 20-days time the full extent of the damage piled on by the Borgata Hotel & Spa after a judge ruled that his $10m Baccarat winnings from 2012 breached casino gambling laws.
Have you ever wondered how much passive income you would need to cover your expenses, so you never had to work again?
It’s not that much.
So if I would have won $10m playing Baccarat using a technique that could be construed by the casino as ‘fraudulent,’ I think I would consider it a job well done and move onto something else like poker for example.
Only Phil Ivey didn’t move onto something else.
And he’s quite good at poker.
Crockfords Casino Make a Noise; Borgata Hears It
In 2012, Phil Ivey and his partner Cheung Yin “Kelly” Sun spent two days in Crockfords Casino in London playing a version of Baccarat known as Punto Banco and won £7.7m.
The casino smelled a rat; carried out an investigation and promptly refused to wire Ivey his winnings. Ivey, who was naturally a little pissed, took Crockfords to court, and he lost. He has since appealed, and the case continues.
The court case revealed that Ivey and his sidekick had used ‘edge sorting’ techniques to win the money. It seems that Ivey’s buddy had a keen eye and was able to spot manufacturing flaws in the back of the cards and Ivey has a lot of dosh. Between them, they created a plan to visit the casino and use the flaw in the system to win big.
As the Crockfords case hit the media, The Borgata Casino & Spa in Atlantic City started to go through a background check of large Baccarat losses and noted that Ivey had taken them to the cleaners to the tune of close to $10m earned over four sessions conducted in 2012. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, Borgata sued Ivey for fraud and a host of other potential problematic charges.
The Verdict
Losing the Crockfords case was a bitter pill to swallow, but Ivey didn’t lose any money except his travel expenses to London and subsequent legal bills. Crockfords returned Ivey’s buy-in, and never released his winnings. The Borgata is a different kettle of fish. Ivey won that $10m in 2012 and they duly paid the man.
The judge overseeing the case was Noel Hillman, and on Friday, he ruled against The Borgata’s claims that Ivey and his sidekick committed fraud but did find that they both contravened their contract with the Borgata by failing to comply with The New Jersey Casino Control Act (CCA).
The judge said the pair broke their contract because they willingly played, and won $10m, despite knowing that the cards were marked and that they were exploiting that edge. The Judge wrote: “By using cards they caused to be manoeuvred in order to identify their value only to them, Ivey and Sun adjusted the odds of Baccarat in their favour. This is in complete contravention of the fundamental purpose of legalised gambling, as set forth by the CCA.”
Ivey and Sun escaped fraud charges because the Judge could not find any rules that the pair had willingly broken.
“Even though Ivey and Sun manufactured an explanation for their instruction to the dealer to turn the cards, the rules of Baccarat do not require an explanation to permit a player to manipulate the cards….. To meet the elements of fraud, Borgata must show that Ivey and Sun made a material misrepresentation and that Borgata relied upon that misrepresentation to its detriment. Ivey did not need to claim superstition to make their requests and card turning instructions permissible – they already were,” the judge wrote.
The next stage in the saga is for The Borgata to submit a list of damages to the court ‘setting forth its damages from Ivey and Sun’s breach of contract,’ within 20-days and for Ivey and Sun’s legal team to file a response within a further 20-day timeframe.
Let’s hope Ivey hasn’t spent all of that money.
