http://blogs.northjersey.com/meadowl...form=hootsuite

Cliffs:

Ivey did not commit a fraud

Ivey did breach his "contract" with Borgata

Ivey gets 0

Borgata may get something from Ivey

I would have ruled it the exact opposite way and given the same amount.

#PardonPhil #PardonJulian

Ouch! Looks like can possibly appeal to court of appeal but it's going to be an expensive legal point to argue.

Cate Hall gives a pretty good cliffs on twitter.


My own take:

The breach of contract seems to be that by flipping the house edge Ivey breached his contract. Well every single card counter does that. So did Don Johnson when he negotiated changes to rules for blackjack and a loss rebate. Johnson certainly didn't explain to the casinos that the rules changes and loss rebate expected would flip the edge. They saw him as a huge whale and complied with his requests.

Very bad news for Ivey. Basically, the casino had two theories why Ivey should lose case... The Judge denied one but agreed on the second theory so IVey loses. The casino will now submit the damages to the judge for approval. They will want the 9-10 million that Ivey won + interest on that money + Ivey will have to pay the casino's attorney fees (probably 500k to 1 million).

Ivey can appeal but he will probably have to put up an appeal bond (which may be difficult) and if he loses the appeal he will have to pay more interest and more attorney's fees for himself and pay the casino's attorney's appellate costs as well.

I would not be surprised if Ivey files for personal bankruptcy in order to shield himself from having to pay the full judgment.

Either way this is terrible news for Ivey.

By the way, I disagree with the court on its ruling. The casino agreed to change the normal terms of the game by agreeing to Ivey's 5 requests. The fact that Ivey was able to gain an advantage as a result does not mean that he commited a breach. The casino could have said No to any of his requests. Bad ruling by this judge who obviously has no intimate knowledge of the gambling world.

As far as I know Borgata's case against Gemaco is still outstanding. Can they double dip and recover damages from both Ivey and Gemaco?

Why isn't the casino guilty of the same breach with the CCA as Ivey? They to swung the ads in Ivey's favor by manipulating the game at Ivey's request?

"The breach of contract by Ivey and his partner, the judge found, is because their actions led the cards to be “marked” even though neither player ever touched the cards themselves"

The casino marked the cards for the player. How is this any different if a BJ dealer was working with a player and marked the cards or purposefully flashed their down card? Is the casino breaking the rules in this case?

Just because the casino did not profit from breaking the rules does not mean they did not break the rules.

The article doesn't list where you can find the full judgment, so I can't figure out which provisions of the CCA the Borgata alleged were violated. Anyone have a link to the judgment?

I think asking the croupier to turn the cards around to make them readable was a big factor or at least it certainly was in the U.K. Genting judgement.

Such BS- just goes to show the gross legal manipulation that goes on to fix legal disputes in favor of the most powerful. Ivey's face probably looked just like my avatar after he heard the news : /

Don't have the judgment. Sounded to me that the judge, through tortured reasoning, was saying that the state permits casinos in games where the house has the edge so that the state benefits by getting a percentage of the house win. Therefore, Ivey breached the "contract" with the casino by avoiding the casinos guaranteed edge.

Personally, I like his chances on appeal (at least on this issue) but, the casino may win on their appeal of the denial of fraud

Casinos never lose, Ivey is lucky he is not going to jail...

It looks like this last opinion was for a Motion for Summary Judgment filed by Ivey, and I wasn't able to find a copy of that on the internet.

But it looks like there's an opinion for an earlier Motion to Dismiss, that mentions CCJ 5:12, without actually listing any as part of the Breach of Contract claim specifically:

http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20..****%20v.%20IVEY

I also found the complaint for Borgata v Ivey, but haven't found anything for Ivey's countersuit:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/218570101...-Pro-Phil-Ivey

This is a horrible decision by a judge with a very warped view of gambling. It seems like the part of the contract that Ivey broke was the part where he was supposed to lose. The logic that Ivey somehow marked the deck without ever touching a card eludes me. No idea what the flaw in the cards actually looks like but I would think that flipping the cards around a certain way simply made it easier to see the flaw. The flaw is there and can be seem no matter which way the cards is turned. If the result is a new rule that says cards must lay as they fall to prevent/minimize anyone else from exploiting a similar flaw in future that would be fine. To retroactively enforce this non existent rule is absurd.

The other major issue I have with the decision is the judge used the lack of any ruling from New Jersey Gaming Regulators (the supposed experts on gaming) as his open door to inject his own uninformed and tortured logic. How about the interpretation that New Jersey Gaming didn't issue a ruling because they saw nothing to rule on?

Ivey appealed the UK decision, I would assume he will do the same here. Not sure if New Jersey has the requirement to post a judgement bond to be able to appeal but I don't think they do, they are not as regressive as Florida which is one jurisdiction that does have that requirement.

So in idiots terms the definition of legal gambling as far as the court is concerned is when only the casino can win if this shifts and the casino cant win due to ANY action by the player this is a breach of contract?

ya if that's what the judge is saying that's the most ******ed **** I've ever heard.

You flip the cards so they are marked, that is so the flaw is on the left when they are 8s or 9s and on the right when they are not.

Has a judge ever ruled in the favor of an individual over a corporation when lotto level money is on the line?

I love it when someone on NVG decides to give their barrack-room lawyer opinion when they don't have a clue about the basics of the case.

You realize this is NVG, right? Gossip...speculation...gfy...etc...

The judge has very creatively found a way to come to the decision that he wanted to by using a " breach of contract " rule. I didn't even realise that in the US this law existed & find it hard to accept when ordinarily the customer is signing nothing. I don't think such a law exists in the UK but may be wrong. After researching, it appears that, certainly in the US, this law does exist & due to that I don't think Ivey has much hope in this case. I'm no lawyer but that's how I see it because you gamble & the casino allows you to gamble with both sides having to be aware the house has an edge.Better watch out playing that slot that you've seen some guy pump loads of cash into without hitting ......

One wonders if Ivey had been a bit less greedy and willing to accept a smaller edge he'd have got away with it. Surely if he can only see the 'marked' cards half the time he still has a substantial edge.

Exactly correct, could of potentially milked it for years......

expected tbh