Lol, ICWUDT.

Yes. gambling debts are enforceable in the UK (since 2007, it was in th 2005 act but dlayed implementation).

The casinos defence would be that they were cheating. This sets up a nice balance of threats for the casino - if they want the money they can try hard to get it but also face a risk of conviction for cheating and no money paid out. The legal action is not a one way bet/freeroll.

I still don't get what the allegation against the woman is but if all is above board she and phil can enforce the debt via the courts.

http://sketchtoy.com/9536134

Hey Phil,

Funny place to ask, but this could be your lucky day. I can give you some questionable legal counselling for a small sweat. No win, no fee. Hit me up, best of luck with whatever route you go down. Take them bastards down.

P.S. Can you give my number to your companion please?

This. Beat me to it. If a casino had a choice: Have a whale play games of chance where we make the rules, or don't have a whale play... they'd chose to have the whale play... every time. It's math.

Best post itt. Kudos, sir.

There's an Ivey documentary on Youtube that shows how he'll go to a casino, get a special craps room all for himself and play for 20 min and leave when he's up $500k or whatever. That's probably what they're referring to.

no way

The funniest thing is...even if Phil Ivey did somehow cheat this game and somehow cheated on Full Tilt...he's still a genius to be able to cheat both so imperceptibly.

I mean he's either the greatest poker player/gambler of all-time or the greatest cheat. There's no in-between.

I highly highly highly highly doubt Ivey cheated in a casino. Highly.

He could have exploited an edge he discovered somehow though, like all punters would have done. Casino's don't like that. Casino's don't like players winning full stop!

There is no edge vs math.

This is like someone saying they've developed a way to have an edge in craps. It simply cannot happen. (yet I know multiple people who think they can beat craps)

There can be a short term "edge" or whatever you wanna call "luck".. and if a greedy casino is dumb enough to raise their betting limits higher than is prudent, they can get hit real hard, real fast.

Ok. This is not correct but I'm too tired to explain it to you.

Well, someone posted in some thread the other day about some eastern euro gang who "legit" beat roulette for over a milly. Casino couldn't get the money back as the way they beat it wasn't illegal at the time. They somehow managed to work out where the ball would land.

No need to explain it.. we'll move on regardless.

My only edge in the pit is to beat the odds (which I know are against me) in a very small number of trials, and then quit while I'm ahead.

Surely that is something mathematics can quantify.. or not?

"...They somehow managed to work out where the ball would land..."

I was lurking in that long "All pro players use game theory... blah blah" thread, and did some quick research on my own.
IIRC, the master of game theory who won a Nobel Prize for his work (i forget the name) was part of a group, in college around 1985, that used cameras and a primitive computer to gauge the speed of the ball and wheel, and could predict the octant (eighth) the ball would fall into.
And they did beat the game for a while. But the available technology at the time was not sufficient to do anything really serious.. The bettor (a girl) got burned by a shorted battery inside her shirt.. things like that..

joe, the story I saw was a different one. Here's a link. They probably should have known it was going to happen at some point and reviewed the rules. I think the rules were made sometime in 1800 and this incident happened 2004.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4069629.stm

So this is why NVG has this rep.... LOL.

Thanks for the link.. I wish I could reciprocate but my search wandered all over the net and I have no idea where it ended up.

Yeah.. i see it's the same basic principle.

There are other successful roulette exploits. In one, a group simply observed wheels in some European casinos, and found one wheel that was slightly off balance and, using a preplanned betting pattern, won something in the 100's of thousands. It's documented somewhere..

What do you mean? The casino takes wagers and wins most wagering against fish who may win 1 mil, then get free bottles of Cristal, a fancy suite, some company, so he s comfortable enough to keep playing and eventually drop it all back? I mean they almost overcome variance and most of the risk of loss against these players.

Yeah but he is also known to drop a lot of money as well. There have been times where he dropped over a million on craps. They don't give refunds on that do they? I bet there is no investigation when he loses. Pay the man his money!

Ivey is about to go off on them

I guess the casinos are pissed that Ivey won't stay long enough to lose back his money. If you're playing a gambling game where the chance of winning/losing is ~50% and you're betting hundreds of thousands of dollars then you only have to be up a few units to show a huge, six figure profit.

So I guess that statistically you will almost always be up a few units at some point when playing basic strategy of whatever game and he just quits when he's up by that amount?

i am pretty sure he gets paid

I get that. All I was alluding too is if there was some issue with the cards or the way they were dealt etc and he picked up on it then he could exploit it.

An assumption, no facts but just a theory.

The likelihood is that Ivey hit a hot streak and the casino are pissed because he hasn't stayed and probably rebuked their offer of hotels/booze/women/food etc which he will know is all a ploy to get him to stay and dump it all back.

He quit whilst ahead and Casinos just hate that. I guess the casino are hoping they can tie him up long enough he may just say forget it. Unlikely he is going to let it go though and he will get paid eventually.