If you are both trying to make the point that a cheat who wins will get more scrutiny than a cheat who loses, then I'm quite happy to agree, but that is far removed from the casino knowing that Ivey was employing a technique that gave him a massive edge and ignoring it with a view to denying payment when he won.

Edge Sorting gives a player an edge, but it's no guarantee to win. i've no idea what the real edge is, but i've read various estimates ranging from 5% to 20%. if i'm not wrong, a 'expert' was cited in the uk case said it is 11%.

even with "decent bankroll management" it is definitely possible to lose money and of course i believe they had the lawsuit as a backup. i think there is zero chance, that they didn't know edge sorting

So the Borgota plan involved paying him out on more than one occasion, then waiting a long enough time for him to spend/lose the money, then suing him?

ivey increased the amounts he bet per hand on each sessions (from april to october i think he visited four times), so it's definitely possible they knew and had the lawsuit as a backup plan in mind. ivey is a us citizen, even he lives abroad so chances are good enough to beat iveys edge.

of course the freeroll theory sounds stupid, but way more unbelievable sounds the claim, that no one knew what edge sorting is ... again, this isn't something new and casinos know their customers as well as all the tricks.

but of course, i can be wrong and no one had a clue, and when a whale steps in they obey, even the player wants very strict shuffle procedures which should raise several flags

anyway ... we can argue over this matter as long as we want, we don't know

I certainly don't disagree that the casinos were incompetent. In particular it's interesting to note that Crockfords employed an ex-police officer. These types have saturated British gambling compliance and regulation for years and have no skills to offer other than connections with former colleagues.

btw someone with 20 bets and a 55% chance of winning a coup has a less than 2% chance of going broke.

On the subject of UK casinos not paying it's worth mentioning that gambling debts have only been enforceable in the UK since 2007, before that they were deemed 'binding in honour only'.

This also applied if you went south on your bookie owing 20 large, not a thing he could do about it apart from harass you.

Casinos and bookies didn't even have to give a reason for not paying if they decided you were png.

Or perhaps someone at borgata knew about edge sorting but would be paid a bonus because of Ivey' play and thus didn't tell management? I'm obviously speculatkng here, but one thing I do know is that the borgata is not monolithic.

I've been informed players are generally rated better if they book 4hrs/day minimum play time vs quick hit & run or otherwise short sessions like 20-30m, or long enough to chase a small loss, get even, and quit. The reason is obvious: to give the house a fair shot at your bankroll and let the grind of the mathematical edge work itself out rather than be the victim or recipient of variance.

There was also a story I read of two brothers who took advantage of a small payout table error on a dragon bonus baccarat which paid something like 5-1 on a 6-point player win rather than the standard 4-1. This small change was enough to gain less than 10% player edge on the bonus bet, I believe, and over the course of a few months the brothers ended up taking the house for a few hundred thousand before they caught on. They were betting the max on bonus (think something low 50-100) and the same on the base bet (equivalent to bonus bet).

They mentioned how they had to endure some stretches of several shoes, where they were losing big, and nice old ladies at the table pleading gem to stop betting player,as it's currently a "Banker shoe", etc.. But over the course of time, the math proved out and they won.

The evidence in the rulings never covered what was tipped and when. It used to be that UK Casinos could not take tips for dealers or pit staff, just waitresses/waiters or bar staff. This got changed so that they could but it is a tronc system with it shared amongst the dealing staff. Now Crockfords is a small elite place, likely under 100 staff in that tronc pool, if he is tipping say £10k every now and again maybe it gets to £50,000 for a session, with 100 staff that's £500 each when they might be on £10-£12 an hour, call it £100 a night.

Of course the staff would be attentive and helpful if the tips are 5+ times their wages. Remember that estimated tip for the night is less than a quarter of a bet.

can you explain, where you get the numbers from?

gamblers ruin probability= (q/p)^j

20 bets is the size of the bankroll ie j in the equation above (PANRIPPER might not have understood that)

but this doesn't have anything to do with the ivey case ... ivey doesn't need to go broke.

he had an edge, but chances he lose weren't that minimal. So IF the casino knew, they calculated the expected loss and compared it with the EV of a lawsuit


@ Richas

not sure what's your point, but if you say they were happy, b/c he tipped good, it's strengthen imo the argument, that they knew, which is my whole point.

The probability of someone with a 10% edge winning 20 bets ie doubling his bank before he goes broke is .0178 - winning 10 bets .0157.

I repeat there is very little chance of someone losing with a 10% edge and reasonable BR management.

You mean the probability of his busting before doubling is .0178.

Yes thanks

It depends what you mean by "they". Let us assume a dealer or pit boss is a bit suspicious or concerned but not quite sure what is going on....tips give them an incentive not to escalate and not to query the player about their behaviour. The staff are not that bothered if the house has a loss, indeed if a loss generates tips they too are incentivised against the house.

My point was that a niggling worry about cheating when it's not your money does not add up to the casino freerolling but it might mean a staff member freerolling off their employer by failing to do their job properly.

I wonder how many times Ivey has used this technique in the past?

not only the point betgo brought up is important, the "going broke" number doesn't tell anything about "any loses". you just don't understand, that you're using the wrong formula.

if you want to keep arguing that a 10% edge is a winning guarantee, and it's impossible that Ivey and Sun could have lost a decent amount, go ahead

@ richas: thx

It is pretty much a winning guarantee if they aren't stopped playing with the marked deck (which was what they had set up). Yes, there is a significant chance of them being down at some point eg a 13% chance they would be 10 bets down at some time, but that only comes into play if the game was going to be stopped while they were losing.

In the Crockfords case, he started betting £4000 and then ramped it up to £75,000 per coup.
He was then betting a maximum of £100,000 per coup.
This was all before any of edge-sorting was completed, so he had no advantage at this time and the house edge would apply.

Probably something similar in the Borgata case, as he has to get the cards sorted first, before he can gain an edge.

This is both false and misleading.

It is totally irrelevant how much Ivey won or lost before the edge-sorting advantage kicked in.

Once the edge-sorting advantage began to take effect (second shoe using a deck which was subject to edge-sorting), Ivey increased his bets. Ultimately Ivey bet the maximum of 150,00 each coup during each of the final three of five shoes. The game ended when the casino replaced the cards after the fifth shoe.

Have a look at these quotes from the Judgement:
(I have bolded some parts for you to look at)


Please tell me how you think it was false?

It seemed to me that people were trying to work out his risk of ruin.
I just thought it might be helpful for them to know some of these facts I posted, to help them make their calculation.
I was thinking perhaps they might want to factor that in, you know so they can make a better estimate.
Anyway, I hope you find it helpful.

You are misreading what happened and what the judge summarized. The only reason I even raise the issue is that this is one of the rare cases where there is no question as to the facts of the case.

It is a little confusing since the judge numbers the shoes Ivey played in two different ways: (1) from the very beginning of his session and (2) after the "edge-sortable" cards were introduced.

In the first four shoes mentioned above, when Ivey bet "small", it was with cards that did not permit the edge sorting.

On the fifth shoe, the casino introduced a set of cards that permitted edge-sorting. Ivey bumped up his bets even during the first shoe of this new set of cards. I imagine this was partly to mask the fact that in subsequent times through the shoes with this set of cards that he would be betting very large.

He then continued to increase his bets during subsequent shoes (as more and more cards became identified), until finally, in what was something like his 10th shoe with that set of cards to a maximum of 150,000 per coup.

No, I got it.

Yeah i know. Although that depends on your definition of small, between the range of £4K and £75K, for the first four shoes.

Yeah, like I said he ramped it up. This does happen before he has the advantage.
It is very clear from the Judgement text he made some bets reaching £100K before he has any advantage (when they are doing the 'turn' before the cards are sorted).
The odds in Baccarat are essentially a coin flip. £100K on some coin flips, sounds risky to me, might want to factor that in, is all I'm saying.

Okay, thanks.