I read recently that the Borgata in Atlantic City is suing professional poker player Phil Ivy for $9.6 million dollars. Their claim is that he did something called "edge play" at the baccarat tables, which basically means he studied the edges of the cards for imperfections to help him better guess what the card was. The casino claims this gave him an unfair advantage. This seems nearly impossible to prove, but even at that, I just don't see how this is cheating. The casino chooses the cards. The casino shuffles and handles the cards. The casino lays the cards down on the table. The only action taken by the player is to look at the face-down cards and make a guess on if the hand will be for the bank, the player or a tie. Seeing that he never even touches the cards, how can this be cheating? On top of that, I find it hysterical that the casino is crying that a player had an unfair advantage. This is a company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars by offering games that give the house an unfair advantage by nature of the game odds. What a bunch of sore losers.
Actually I think you will find that Ivey insisted on bringing his own deck of cards for "superstitious" reasons.
Atleast he made more than this poor schmuck who was also playing baccarat http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11243803
“Because of his notoriety as a high-stakes gambler, and the amount of money he intended to gamble, Ivey was able to negotieate special arrangements. Those arrangements included a private pit, a dealer fluent in Mandarin Chinese, an eight deck shoe of purple Borgata cards made by Gemaco, and an automatic card shuffling device. At the time Ivey claimed superstition as the reason for these requests. The casino claims that Ivey was actually creating “a situation in which he could surreptitiously manipulate what he knew to be a defect in the playing cards.” Doesn't sound like his own cards to me.
The casino did not supply the deck of cards. They agreed to his terms, because he plays super high stakes.
It says they were "purple Borgata cards", meaning they were the casino's cards, he was simply indicating the color and the amount of cards he wanted. He did not supply the cards to them. House stock.
My bad he did not bring his own cards. He requested a specific brand and type of cards which the casino agreed to. The cards he wanted had a specific pattern on the back which is how he did his edge sorting. Originally, I thought the casino allowed him to bring his own deck.
What's the deal with this guy anyway - why do you care if a gambler is getting sued? It's big money to you and me, perhaps, but surely not in the Casino world.
It's big news because Ivey is widely considered to be one of if not the best poker player in the world.
In the absolute worst case scenario, the guy was smart enough to see that there was an imperfection in the cards, enough to give his guess better odds. That is hardly cheating. Mostly I just hate to see them apply that label to someone who makes his professional living playing cards, when the fact is that they are just being sore losers. There's only one bet in the entire casino that does not have an inherent edge in favor of the house, and they're going to actually complain that someone else had an "unfair advantage" just because of the way he saw the back side of the cards? That's crazy!
Yeah it will be interesting to see how the court case develops. He is also involved in another case with another casino for the same thing. Really, I fail to see how this is any different to card counting in blackjack. It's frowned upon but it's not illegal. I think the casino should just suck up their losses and learn from their mistake.
Maybe it's just a case of "no such thing as bad publicity" on the casino's part. I think it's something Phil is probably use to after everything went down with Full Tilt a few years ago. I'm pretty sure he can handle this and come out on top.