The full judgment is here http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/...83/302463/107/

With the majority of cases that go through the judicial system, the law is pretty clear and settled, and all that remains to be looked at are questions of fact. In those cases, the outcome will tend to hinge on the evidence: was the car speeding? Were they texting at the time? Did they have any drinks at the bar before getting behind the wheel?

In this case there was a novel question of law, so it'll look a lot different from most cases. This happens when legislators at the time they're drafting the law, don't anticipate a situation that's actually come up in real life. And so now the judge has to figure out what they would have wanted to happen, had they known at the time that such a scenario was possible.

The question of law is whether the legislature meant for edge sorting to be a way for customers to gain an advantage over the house, or not.

The judge maybe could have spent more time comparing and contrasting edge sorting with card counting and card marking, but there's nothing unusual about him trying to figure out legislative intent to arrive at his decision. However, it might have been more appropriate for him to rely in equity on the 'implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing', rather than contract law.

Read through the 30 pages.

Yup.

The judge's main reasoning for ruling against Ivey is because he turned the odds against the house and towards the player. This constitutes a breach of contract with the CCA.

Cliffs notes:

Main reasoning:
All gambling is illegal and immoral based on historic judeo-christian values.
States can make exemptions for gambling. gambling is permitted if you follow the state legislation, in this case the CCA
Any time you gamble at a casino, you have an implied contract to follow the rules set out by the CCA.
The CCA states that the purpose of legalizing gambling is for the economic health / wealth of the state of New Jersey.
By gaining an advantage on the casino, Ivey 'breached' this implied contract [lolol]

Other points:
-Asking for some cards to be turned amounts to 'marking cards'
-This term is to be applied broadly
-Borgata sued based on breach of contract and on fraud.
-Ivey not found guilty of 'fraud' since saying "I want the cards turned because I'm superstitious" doesn't amount to fraud.

He didnt break any laws, so jail was never gonna happen.

From the judgment: "Allowing a player to unilaterally adjust the odds of a casino game in his favor would violate the essential purpose of legalized gambling." Which is to enrich the operator and the state of New Jersey through taxation, apparently. Seriously.

Also WTF with the U2 lyrics at the beginning? Is this serious? The gambler's job at a casino is to lose, according to New Jersey?

it is more of a case of the judge knowing that ivey isnt entitled to the rewards of his scheme, fitting the law to make the result of the case correct in his mind.

Sure, but doesn't it set a precedent that means any advantage player is breaking contract?

The idea that Ivey has a contractual obligation to make sure the casino is getting the best of him seems absurd. Logically this obligation should rest solely in the hands of the casino.

There's no written or verbal contract in casinos with regards to this matter. I've never heard of "unspoken" legally binding contracts. Can any Lawyers/ law students speak to this idea?

This seems like blaming the dog for eating food that you left on the ground haha

The Judge can only use the law that the parties cite to render a verdict, so if a different civil claim like 'larceny by trick' or 'false pretenses' was more fitting than fraud or breach of contract, the judge could have dismissed this case and asked Borgata to refile. That might have been a more fitting option.

Judge opened by referencing the illegality and immorality of gambling going back to Christian virtues. My view is that Judge hates gambling. Only accepts it as a means to profit the state.

Yep. I like how he dismisses the traditional Chinese beliefs which were pupportedly the reason for turning the eights as so nonsensical as to be equivalent to no justification at all, but judeo-christian religion is the basis for the whole decision.

I'm heartbroken.

This ruling put me to tears.

A couple of thoughts:

1. I think the breach-of-contract ruling is poorly reasoned. The stereotypical law school example of an implied contract is one in which a restaurant patron chokes on food. A doctor in the restaurant saves the patron's life using the Heimlich, and then sends the patron a bill for his medical services. The patron, under an implied contract theory, might well owe the doctor. This doesn't seem at all similar -- with the doctor, the patron, choking, doesn't have the capacity to work out a contract, and it would be unjust to let the patron reap the benefit of the doctor's work without compensation. In Ivey's situation, Ivey made a number of requests and the casino agreed. The court didn't cite any implied contract cases for support, so this looks like an issue of first impression.

2. The court's argument that "any player advantage is against the purpose of the gambling rules" seems almost purely results-oriented. Card counting in blackjack is not really different; the court's distinction about marking cards isn't at all persuasive to me.

3. The court's use of "mark" in the sense of "distinguishing something from other things" is a technical copyright use and is not the sense in which the statute uses "marked." That argument is to me laughably bad.

4. I'm not a New Jersey lawyer, but I'd be fairly surprised if Ivey owes attorney fees on a ruling like this.

5. An appeal of this ruling should not be particularly expensive: in federal court, that's an opening brief, a reply brief, and an oral argument that is almost always between ten minutes and half an hour per side. The arguments are generally restricted to arguments each side made in the trial court, so the briefs on summary judgment are usually pretty good source material for appellate briefs. It can get a little more complex here if Borgata appeals the dismissal of its fraud claims, but not all that much. Costs for an appeal might be a couple of hundred thousand. On appeal from summary judgment, the court of appeal gives zero deference to the trial court's ruling.

6. The court got the fraud ruling right. One element of fraud is that the plaintiff must have reasonably relied on a statement from the defendant. Borgata argued that it relied on Ivey's statement that he's superstitious. The court ruled that reliance on that statement wasn't reasonable, and that seems correct.

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.

Just because there's no law saying something's not legal doesn't mean it's legal. It's the judge's job to resolve open questions of law, so he had no choice but to try and fit the case into the laws that lawmakers have actually passed (using legislative intent as the guide. Because there's no law on the books that would make it a perfect fit.

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.

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.

I'm glad Ivey lost the case. He probably got a ****-ton of casino staff fired over this in both cases.

Some might look down on Phil's mechanics, call it immoral. But as Canada Bill Jones said, "It's immoral to let a sucker keep his money."

Like they teach you in One-L... caveat emptor, pal.

I hope the case is appealed

What is this Mickey Mouse bull**** logic?

Are there any legal experts here that can say whether this contract they are referring to is an international standard or not? It sounds ridiculous, and open for abuse imo. Casinos can try and sue big winners for getting money back by making it look like they used an edge.

I wonder how Ivey will prepare for this if he has to pay a huge amount. The obvious way would be to transfer his assets in a way that he can file for personal bankruptcy, but then he probably can't gamble for years.

Wow. Even the legal system over there is in the pockets of the casino owners.

Poor Ivey.

Implied contracts are based in common law, which comes from the British system. The US case won't establish formal precedent anywhere, though, not even really in New Jersey -- and definitely not in the UK or in the many other jurisdictions that operate under common law.

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.

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.

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.