Not the same end effect. If you're cheating you can go to prison.

That's why the courts had to rule on it. A casino *tried* to say it was a cheat, and lost.

somebody sued over counting cards? hilarious.

Yes they lost but in Nevada the casino can ban you anyway:

"In jurisdictions like Nevada, casinos are free to take any counter-measures they wish. State law prohibits discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin or disability. But Nevada casinos may exclude players for counting cards, or even just for winning."

I. Nelson Rose

http://rose.casinocitytimes.com/arti...-counters-1021

In Atlantic city they can not ban you for counting cards as long as you just use your brain.

this is what happens when you're the best gambler in the world...you learn how to make money in all types of situations, even casino house games.

ivey is seriously a beast.

Could you imagine what would happen if Ivey lost that much and didn't pay. He would be banned from every casino in the world.

If the rich and famous got the same level of justice that you and I did, that would be true. (See: OJ Simpson murder trial)

Given the same set of facts, but inserting my name instead of Lindsey Lohan, I would be in jail right now. Think about it. Stealing a valuable necklace, DUI, cocaine, several probation violations, assault and much, much more.

Lindsey Lohan criminal timeline (it's really long):

http://www.eonline.com/news/367020/l...re-a-lot-of-em

Ivey should lose the case, but won't.

baccarat is a very nice game to play...as in if ur making good decisions

i think ivey should get his winnings....although he was using advantage play....7 to 8 million is still cash

Borgata wants their money back too

http://blog.northjersey.com/meadowla...ing-card-scam/

****ers should pay him.

I don't know about the US legalities but in the UK, bankers games (table games in a casino) are by law, games of unequal chance and if they are not operated as defined within the legislation (whether because of casino or player manipulation) then they are no longer games of unequal chance, and the game therefore is not legal.

To put that in context, Ivey has deliberately manipulated the cards to give himself an edge (which he fully admits to doing) but in doing so, the game is no longer one of unequal chance and is therefore not legal.

In this instance, the game was made invalid by Ivey's actions and IMO the casino is fully within its rights to refuse payment (or sue as in the case with Borgata).

Personally, I don't believe that Ivey has a leg to stand on and quite right too IMO. He has blatantly cheated and I hope that both Borgata and Crockfords win their cases against him.

Look at like this, Ivey says that he did nothing wrong although he admits to edge sorting. In other words, he admits to reading the backs of cards to gain an advantage which begs the question; if Ivey is playing a game of poker and notices that some of the cards are marked what will he do? Keep the knowledge to himself and play the advantage or tell the dealer that the cards are marked? If he thinks that edge sorting in a game of Punto Banco is not cheating then he is likely to think that reading marked cards in a game of poker is not cheating either.

Maybe this is the reason he's been so successful at poker - because he's been cheating throughout his career.

I agree with your main point about the edge sorting basically making the game null and void by law, BUT poker is a different game which uses different playing cards. In any major tournament it's next to impossible to be playing with marked cards. In the baccarat game(not major tournament) they used the same deck the WHOLE session at Ivey's request. Standard casino rule is to switch the decks every so often. Ivey is my favorite player, but honestly both cases can go either way. The Casinos could've easily switched the decks or simply asked Ivey to leave after he had won X amount.

I posted this after reading a newspaper story, and having a little more information than I had before. The item in that story that got my attention is that the casino adjusts what they do with the cards for other players.

Specifically, there are superstitious Chinese players that request that the cards be handled a certain way, turned facing a certain direction, or otherwise get special handling. Ivey was playing with a friend/partner/whatever who was Chinese and making those requests. IMO that puts an entirely different light on this story. What I posted follows.

-----------------------------------------------


According to the letter of he law, Ivey might be liable. However, the casino agreed to all of the Team Ivey requests, and in fact agreed to requests from other players in other games that the cards be handled a certain way. Therefore, a good argument could be made that the casino opened to the door to manipulation by other players, which makes the casino's argument pretty weak.

As I see it, the casino's arguent is that it is OK for superstitious Chinese players to request special handling of the cards, but it's not OK for a poker player to realize that possiblity to gain an edge, and take it.

Keep in mind that Ivey is a professional poker player, considered by many to be the best in the world. Poker players understand that money is made by pushing small edges, that is, if you can find a spot where you have a very slight advantage, you should always take that edge, because over a statistically valid sample size of hands, that player will make money.

Phil Ivey was doing what good players are supposed to do. He saw an edge and he seized it. In this case, the casino opened the door by their response to the requests of previous players. Ivey jumped all over that edge, and the casino got played. Legally.

That's not correct, what Ivey was doing was cheating, pure and simple. What's more, he is unlikely to win any court case because he has admitted to edge sorting and in doing so has admitted to manipulating the game to a degree where it is no longer a game of unequal chance which in British casinos, is illegal.

If a casino decides to allow a player's request, that doesn't give the player a license to cheat; that is the casino accommodating a customer within what it deems reasonable limits. The fact is that Ivey's requests were about aligning the cards so that he could cheat, not because of some superstition.

Can edge sorting be applied to poker in any way?

Figuring out a way to beat the game that's not illegal is not cheating. Just because you found a way to gain an edge in a house game doesn't necessarily mean you cheated.

No s*** Einstein however; edge sorting makes the game illegal because - as I have reiterated - edge sorting means that the game is no longer a game of unequal chance which makes the game illegal under UK gaming law and the body that will lose is the body that made the game illegal i.e. Ivey.

what did he admit? i'm curious and don't know details to this

There are a number of articles on it but try this one from which you can also link to the Daily Mail article;

http://pokerfuse.com/news/industry/p...nco-win-16-09/

then he's an idiot for admitting it, how could they possibly prove he knew about the design flaws?

Since it's a civil case, the standard of proof is preponderance of evidence rather than proof beyond reasonable doubt. It's more likely than not that when he implemented the perfect scheme in order to edge sort the whole shoe, and them aligned his betting pattern perfectly with the value of the first card visible in the shoe, this did not happen by chance. I think the standard for a criminal case (de facto if not de jure -- i.e. there would be no question as to what he purposefully did) would also easily have been met even if he hadn't confessed to be using edge sorting.

aha i see, thanks

If the story of Phil having an advantage because he knew which cards were face-cards because the way they were cut on the back of them is that really cheating?

Or is he exploiting a mistake made by the card manufacturer because they put defective cards into play at a casino?

It seems the card company learned a valuable lesson not to "Cut Corners" imo....

So looking at cards on there back is cheating?