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Not sure why you would think that when he listed out the history of the legalized gambling, which shows that he was looking to legislative intent to guide his ruling. There's even less that makes it sound like lawmakers would have preferred for edge sorting to be legal.
The Court's discussion of legislative history is weak, but that's no real surprise. There often isn't a great deal of accessible history material from state legislatures, and I wouldn't expect what is there to be relevant to an edge-sorting case.
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His decision-making was pretty standard for a case where there's no laws on the books that are more germane to the case at hand. Although the reliance on an implied contract was surprising. There might be some grounds for appeal because of that, and because of the amount at stake.
As a legal matter, the amount at stake isn't at all relevant to the liability merits. I've spent a ton of time litigating breach-of-contract cases, and implied-in-law contracts are very, very rare.
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Not sure an overturn on appeal's got that much of a chance though. Some of the other checks and balances built into the system are that lawmakers can pass a law making it clear whether they intended for edge sorting to be legal or not. And future courts can choose to distinguish future cases from this one, to minimize any precedent set by this ruling.
To really understand this ruling, you have to go back and read the ruling on the motion to dismiss. Ivey's arguments there look quite good to me, and those arguments will be live on the appeal as well. One argument he has that I like is that what Borgata is really doing is saying Ivey violated the gambling statute. But the statute doesn't have what's called a private right of action. For many statutes, the state can convict you if you violate them. But a private person can't sue you for violating them -- and that's the case here. The court clearly understands this issue, and I think it's why the court went to this implied-contract theory to find Ivey liable.
To your checks and balances point, I don't think the legislature needs to get involved, if only because casino countermeasures against edge sorting are so easy. This is a one-off event and a one-off case.
The collection issue is interestng. Ivey at the moment has a fair amount of public support in what is definitely a close call and an interesting case. I for one think he's right. But ducking enforcement by taking assets out of the United States and declaring bankruptcy is pretty sleazy, and I would imagine he'll lose a ton of public support by doing so.