+1

see thread title.

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If you think 1 in 1000 is very unlikely you don't understand probability very well.

Maybe he bet the tie (pays 8 to 1).

Maybe he played other side bets such as Egalite or Dragon bonus. There are sidebets out there that pay 200 to 1.

Maybe the casino used unshuffled cards like the Golden Nugget.

Why is it so hard to comprehend that he went on a heater and won roughly 10:1 on his money throughout his 2 day trek?

I've ran up $100 to $1100+ many times playing roulette (playing inside only) and have heard plenty of stories of people running hotter, I must be missing something.

He only made 7.3 to 1 on his million pound deposit.

Read your post again - then edit.

This is why I built the computer model to show exactly what happened and HOW it could happen.

Its just funny how despite me showing them the truth they still refuse to believe it due to their misunderstanding and misapplication of the math.

Proof that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I show them a real model that replicates the situation and show EXACTLY how players win by just luckboxing their way onto the positive part of the curve and the people in this thread still can't accept it LOL.

I guess, according to their math, no one should ever win...

Funny, they are smart enough to calculate probability yet have no understanding of the numbers or situation. If they could just build themselves a model they'd see that yes, in real life over the longrun there are COUNTLESS upward positive trends.

If there weren't then no one would ever gamble. duh

Is there anyone who knows how British gaming commission procedure works that can comment itt?

Is it it completely standard to refer the case to them and then pay it later? Or could the fact of this referral be an indication that a claim has been made on the asset? (Or something else...perhaps the source of funds was a flagged bank account?)

If not standard, then why take the bad press?

If it is just standard then please carry on with stats debates.

I'll lay odds that it will not be determined that PI has either special powers or the ability to cheat at this game. I will not bet on the mysterious pretty Asian, however. Too suspicious! My 3k, your 1k. qtb

Everybody understands the more tickets you have the bigger your chance to hit the jackpot.
Also everybody is aware PI had a lot of these tickets and can take that into consideration.
But apparently you can imagine we are actually that stupid that we don't.

I have explained why this could make the casino suspiscious and have pointed out this doesn't mean PI has cheated. Nobody else has accused him of that either; we were just playing around with numbers because that is fun. We could have more of that if we dig into Rainman scenario's.

Does PI indeed have his "Rainman moments"?
and more importantly;
If so, how does that work?

I feel like playing high Baccarat

The casino has 0% reason to feel suspicious. The game is a 1.06% edge game. There are ten cameras, the dealers are trained, there are dozens procedures that the dealer, floor, pit, and even players have to follow, procedures that have evolved OVER decades of gaming.

Would the casino have been suspicious if Phil had lost 20 straight hands in a row? Absolutely not.

Seriously, the casino has zero grounds here. Phil didn't cheat, didn't even touch the cards, played on their turf surrounded by cameras, dealer, pit bosses, etc. etc. casino has no case whatsoever.

When corporations face a lose, they use everything in their power to welch on the deal. Seriously, think about how insurance companies operate. Insurance companies are fine taking your money until you get into an accident and then they do everything in their power to not pay you.

Same thing here.

It is beyond ludicrous that the casino could have any cause whatsoever.

Their house, their rules, their procedures, their control of the betting amounts, their house edge... and yet somehow they are worried about Phil cheating???

In the words of Paris Hilton

Puh-leese

Has this crap casino not paid out yet?

Drogbathisisadisgrace.gif

FFS! Pay that man his monies!

You are barking up the wrong tree. Like I said anything is possible.
This could just as well be an excuse from the casino to stall payment.

This is boring, let's get into the Rainman stuff; despite the house edge Baccarat can be beaten.
That idea to me is fascinating in many ways.

A lot of posters saying this stuff throughout this thread, implying that the casino is just trying to avoid payment. But that doesn't stack up - the casino would only take this path very reluctantly. Just think about the outcome of doing this without good cause:

(1) They do not gain financially as they will ultimately have to pay in any case.

(2) The publicity of "refusing to pay" is hugely damaging to their business (part of what they are selling is confidence/security)

(3) The publicity also damages their reutation for discretion (privacy is another part of what they are selling)

(4) They get a black mark with the gaming commission for not immediately paying out a legitimate win

(5) They lose at least one high roller client (Ivey), and possibly some of his friends, forever.

otoh I can't think of one good thing that comes out of it for them.

Witholding payment is definitely not a good choice from the casino pov. The fact that they have done so for 6 weeks suggests there is a real concern which hasn't been fully resolved by the investigation. (I'm not saying Ivey cheated but I am saying there is something which gives serious cause for concern).

Some posters are also implying that somehow Crockfords can just get away with not paying. That ignores the fact that this is an established venue with lots of high roller clients based in London. The UK has a well regulated gambling regime and a solid legal system - its not like this happened in an unregulated venue in some tinpot corrupt dictatorship.

Well, the venue was regulated, definitely.

You missed the point. The point is that there is a huge selection bias involved here that needs to be taken into consideration. This Phil Ivey session is simply one session out of thousands of session by high stakes gamblers across the world, but has been selected for discussion here specifically because it involved a big upswing. It is exactly the same point (made in a different way) that dgiharris made when he produced the downward sloping graph and put a red circle around the biggest upswing.

Had the casino suspected that Phil Ivey was a cheat before his session and then he had a big upswing in that session, then you would a point. But it appears that is not the case; the casino basically did what dgiharris did and simply put a red circle around one of the few big upswings in the graph and cried "cheat".

Your attempt at a meme is bad, and you should feel bad.

You present a well reasoned argument. Unfortunately, it just doesn't have any basis in reality because the above is not how big executive decisions occur.

I'll tell you exactly what happened.

An executive big wig (a thousand miles away) is going through the quarterly numbers and all is well until the big red phone beneath the glass case starts rigging. He picks up the phone and hears a panicked middle manager say that they just took a 7.3 Million pound hit.

The executive big wig (who also has no real gambling experience) says, "How the hell could that happen? Something must be wrong. He thinks about statistics and concludes, "There is only a 0.03% chance of this happening, therefore we must have been cheated!"

The executive big wig calls for an immediate conference with other big wigs (Ivy league blowhards with no real life work or gambling experience). There is enough ego in the room to power a nuclear fission facility. The big wigs likewise agree with their esteemed colleague, "Something must be amiss and lets launch an investigation immediately!"

So, they launch said investigation with the writing on the wall being "You better find out HOW he cheated."

So, the decision to "not pay" Phil Ivey isn't necessarily malicious. It is born out of righteousness and ego and Ivy league incompetence just like pretty much every bad decision ever made by big businesses.

From the standpoint of the big wigs, they 100% believe that they are right and that they can bend the world to their will. I mean, just look at them grasping at straws focusing on Phil Ivey's girlfriend being banned in some "other" casino. Puh-leese.

ummmm, how about 7.3 million pounds they don't have to pay. That is a pretty big plus.

^^ I have a reasonable amount of exposure to "executive decisions" and can tell you it doesn't work like that. I agree the large hit and low probability might cause a review but not to the point where they hold up for 6 weeks and expose the company to the publicity and all the downsides.

But they don't get to keep the money if they can't show cheating - the gaming commission and courts make them pay up.

You and your pathetic ilk are the most depressing aspect of this story

How will looking at a picture of some woman who spent a w/e with Ivey last August improve your dismal existence?

GET A LIFE

I dunno, I've been a part of a lot of big wig executive decisions and they were always a battle between the middle managers who knew what was going on vs ivory tower execs who were clueless.

But not to fear, what they lack in actual knowledge they make up for with ego and arrogance and their laurels of "well, I got my MBA at Harvard...."

Occasionally, you do run across an exec that has a clue, but for the most part, they make awful decisions based on limited information. And the reason they have limited information is because during the meetings and briefings they are too busy checking emails on their blackberries...

You can't tell an exec anything they dont' want to hear. And in this case, I can EASILY see an exec driving this whole fiasco convinced he is right and thus driving the investigation to reach the conclusion he knows is right.

Seriously, if you have experience at the executive level, then you can't deny the above.

Happens all the time.

There are good and bad execs (like anything else) but the people at the top tend to be smart and better than average at avoiding the worst business mistakes (helped by input from others if appropriate).

Just a guess, but did you get passed over for promotion in favour of others with top notch education? Sounds to me like you've had some bad experience in the corporate world which has coloured your view of all top managements. You might have run into some incompetent/unethical ones but most of them are decent people, really.

You state you've been a part of executive decisions...

and yet you seem to have very little experience in the way of ego being the cause of bad decisions.

From the exec standpoint. Obviously they get to keep the money because obviously Phil Ivey "must" have cheated and their ego won't let them see it any different. So there is no harm in withholding the money because obviously they will be proven right...

I've seen $10M, $20M and even $60M dollar deals blown because of exec egos and arrogance. And I can easily see that being the case here.

Maybe you just happen to have worked with execs that are the exception to the rule???

I never got passed over. I worked for the government and was turned off by the insanity of how inefficient everything was... So I went to work for a fortune 500 company and to my surprise encountered the similar problems.

My experience is that 10% of the execs were top notched, wicked smart and great people. 30% were okay, but 60% where just plain awful. I mean so so bad... And the politics was such that the 60% had a strangle hold on the company.

Worked for 2 companies and saw the same things in each.

Now I'm self employed and will never work for a company again.

So yeah, I admit to being biased