Phil Ivey continues to fight for the reversal of the 2016 judgement in an edge-sorting case which awarded the Borgata $10.13 million USD. This week, after the New Jersey Appellate Court requested evidence of legal precident, Ivey’s legal team came back with what they hope will be a home run for their appeal.
When this whole case started in 2016, Judge Noel L. Hillman ruled in favor of the Borgata based on the idea that Ivey and his partner Cheung Yin Sun (who goes by Kelly) ran “a scheme” to create “an alteration of the normal random selection of characteristics or the normal chance of the game”.
Ivey’s lawyer, Louis M. Barbone, retaliated stating the Borgata is at least partially responsible for what happened at the mini-baccarat table in 2016. In mini-baccarat, the players don’t even touch the cards.
So while Ivey and Sun participated within the rules set by the casino, it was the Borgata staff that ultimately allowed conditions which altered the odds of the game by agreeing to their requests to reposition cards.
How They Won Millions
This is one of the most fascinating things I’ve researched.
They called this woman Kelly – “The Baccarat Machine”
She developed a system to use edge sorting at Baccarat that was never seen before and used Phil as the high roller celebrity degen face of the operation.
— Joey Ingram 🤙🏻🤙🏻 (@Joeingram1) September 19, 2019
Kelly, aka the Baccarat Machine, has won over $30 million from the game, with around $22 million coming from her partnership with Ivey. The two set off on a worldwide casino rampage in 2012, and the winnings came pouring in thanks to edge-sorting.
If you’re not familiar with edge-sorting it is the art of detecting asymmetries in the manufacturer’s patterns on the backs of playing cards.
The duo had a specific set of rules they followed in order to win millions of dollars at mini-baccarat. Kelly hails from northern China so they always selected a dealer that spoke Cantonese. Then they would request the cards be shuffled or sorted in a certain way.
In Asian culture, superstition is the norm, so asking for cards to be turned for “good luck” did not raise concerns. This allowed her to get a read on the key cards of the game: sixes, sevens, eights, and nines.
Living on the “Edge”
Ivey became a true believer in the business of edge-sorting, and as the old saying goes, business was good. That is, until they decided to play the Crockford Club in London, England. They racked up the equivalent of nearly $12 million USD in a matter of hours.
The casino refused to pay.
Ivey sued.
He lost.
That case was decided based on the Gambling Act of 2005. This states that someone may cheat “without dishonesty or intention to deceive: depending on the circumstances it may be enough that he simply interferes with the process of the game”.
Borgata Ruling
Will Ivey and Sun receive the same fate here in the States? Barbone cited a previous case, Doug Grant, Inc. v. Greate Bay Casino Corp., which involved a 1998 Blackjack card-counting ring.
“As recognized in Doug Grant, where the rules of the game are being followed, the normal chance and randomness of the game cannot be manipulated.”
Will this legal precident be enough to overturn the 2016 decision? Stay tuned.
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