A follow-up question (given all courts' seeming agreement that Ivey would have been fine had he just noted and exploited a defect in the card back, but that it was his asking the dealer to rotate the card that constituted "marking"):

Is the nature of this exploit such that it could have worked on a somewhat less effective scale had Ivey and his companion simply avoided asking for any card-turning and thus only been able to read 50% of the card backs instead of all of them? IOW, I'm not familiar with Bac rules nor the specific nature of the exploit, but would Ivey have been able to simply notice when a card had been turned in a way that enabled him to read the back, and for those that weren't oriented in the right way simply be like 'oh well, I guess I'm playing this hand blind but I'll still pwn the casino on the 50% of hands where I can read the backs'? If so, it seems like a pretty crazy gamble to risk such an outlandish request.

It seems like most gamblers who discover exploits get too greedy and never milk it slow enough, even a smart gambler like Ivey. I was genuinely surprised he didn't approach it a bit slower.

I suppose that he could do a card counting trick and keep playing till a shoe had a high number of good cards oriented in one particular direction, but it seems unlikely that that would happen often enough or dramatically enough to give him much of an edge and, if it did, he would then have to make sure that the cards weren't washed to keep the orientation and insist on the same deck. (Presumably he would have cards washed initially to give a chance of his favourable deck appearing).

Also remember that you only see the one next card out of the 4 or more that will be dealt. So marginally more likely to be a high card doesn't really get you very far.

Am I totally missing something here?

It seems to me that there is absolutely no edge-sorting advantage in the absence of rotating a subset of the cards (either high cards or low cards). That is, if there is no rotating of any cards, then a player would gain absolutely no information from playing with a deck of cards that has the asymmetrical pattern (that provides the potential for edge-sorting). The cards are shuffled after each shoe, so there is no way to know which card is which after the shuffle.

Either I am very stupid or I am missing something here.

The extremely unlikely scenario is that the orientation of the cards is observed as they are played and it is noticed that eg 90% of the 7 8 9s are with the relevant pattern discrepancy at the bottom of the card and overall 50% of the cards are oriented in that manner.

Monorail's theory is that there is therefore a high card bias in those oriented cards. ie they have been edge sorted by chance. Their orientation is then preserved in the method used by Ivey - not washed and machine shuffled.

I don't think it is feasible.

Okay, I see. In my opinion trying to gain any edge sorting edge in this manner borders on ludicrous.

Also, isn't it true that Ivey's scheme (as would any reasonable edge-sorting scheme) relied upon the deck being brand new? That is, not having any of the original orientations altered from their pristine state. For it is with that knowledge can you gain the maximum advantage by rotating only the high cards.

In the very first time through the shoe, all of the cards have the same orientation. So the above "rely upon random chance to provide a significant split in the orientation of the high vs low cards and then card count (or whatever you would call it) to gain an edge" scheme would not work in this case.

No, they can be shuffled and in any orientation, and still be edge-sorted afterwards. The only requirement is that the deck (the pattern on the back) is in some way asymmetrical.

That may be theoretically true, but I think it is clear that Ivey's scheme depended upon all of the cards being in a single orientation before play began.

Yes, I take your point, it would certainly be easier. And quite likely a new deck (so neither side has to worry about some other sort of tampering). But I think even if the deck had been re-orientated randomly beforehand, an eagle-eyed edge-sorter could remember these orientations. It's only 4 cards, up or down (i mean up or down rotation/orientation before turned over, not face/back). Or however many in the coup. Anyone could do that.
And it did sound like the casino were willing to give to any request, which is a huge help. Get them to pause before turning them over, or whatever you need to do.

Couldn't Ivey just memorize the pattern upside down as well? I have no idea how hard it would be but I assume it's possible.

Don't give me too much credit for having any sort of coherent 'theory' -- I don't know the rules of Bac well, nor exactly what Ivey's edge-sorting exploit entailed or required. I was simply asking whether the angle he was exploiting could have worked on a reduced-efficacy basis if he'd simply done without the asking-the-dealer-to-turn-the-cards part that was ultimately his undoing. IOW, was he in a position of: "Without requesting the card turn, I could still read half of the cards and be at an x% edge, but I want to be able to read them all and reap 2x%"? But it seems as though the answer is no, that the exploit is useless without the card-turning request.

From what I remember, not only did he get them to turn the cards, they also agreed to deal out the first 4 cards before he placed a bet, for a clear view of the backs of all the initial cards.

I find this case fascinating from a law + gambling point of view, but I still can't get over just how ludicrous it is that the casino ever granted these requests in the first place (even just making the request should have set off alarm bells). You've got one of the world's most renowned card-sharps asking you to deal out 4 cards before making a bet, and turning them 180 degrees, you know..."for luck", and you don't have a single shift manager or eye in the sky step in and say 'hey, maybe we should take a closer look to make absolutely sure there are no card irregularities'? Or fk, at least do it after he takes you for 7 figures on Day 1 before welcoming him back for Days 2-4, amirite? W/e, rant over.

I don't think the four cards were dealt before the bets. That would be an absurd edge.

I think the bets were made then the cards dealt face down so that their orientation could be noted, then turned over and rotated if required.

He requested a shoe without a plastic cover or hairs hiding the first card.

They could definitely see at least the first card.

These aren't the greatest analogies. In Ivey's case, the casino was unknowingly providing unfair cards. But I really don't think it matters whether or not they knew - I think it's pretty straightforward to say that the casinos are 100% responsible for providing fair dice/cards/etc. to all of the games that they offer. Thus, if they fail to do this they should suffer consequences for their mistake regardless of whether or not the unfair equipment was to their advantage.

And is it really that hard to believe that I would accept my error and not expect to get any money back in the blackjack scenario? It's part of my job as a blackjack dealer to pay very close attention to other people marking cards. If I somehow don't see a lot of marked cards that a bunch of other players are picking up on AND I don't switch out the deck for a long period of time - I certainly wouldn't try to get their money back because, "I was dumb and didn't know."

This seems like Mickey Mouse logic to me. Someone asks me to take a pen and mark cards for them. I say yes and continue to let them play. Thus, the responsibility is still on me. The only difference between this and what Ivey did is that one is a well known way to gain an advantage and the other is a lesser known way to gain an advantage. There are definitely people in the world, people with no common sense who are very uneducated about how math and probabilities work, who would take that pen and mark the cards for their customer without realizing the severity of the edge they are giving up by doing so. Should we let those people off the hook too?

Anyone in the professional gaming industry should know that when one of the most well-known and highly successful professional gamblers shows up with a foreign Asian woman and makes a bunch of ridiculous requests over the course of a nosebleed stakes baccarat game - that at the VERY least they are taking a big risk by granting all of the requests and allowing them to play because they may be giving up at least SOME % of their edge by doing so. From that perspective, it doesn't seem a whole lot different than Ivey just straight up asking them if they could mark the cards for him. It should raise a lot of red flags either way. The whole, "we had no idea what was going on, Ivey asking the dealer to rotate the cards is equivalent to him taking a pen and marking them," is disgustingly laughable.

Perhaps in a general, common-sense way you (i.e. the casino/staff) bear some responsibility, but the law is very clear: a casino game played with a marked deck is null and void. That's an important distinction to appreciate here too: the NJ court explicitly rejected the idea of fraud or criminal culpability on Ivey's part. The court's NOT allowing the casino to go after Ivey for any sort of 'wrongdoing', they're simply saying that the gambling game offered was not a sanctioned game because it involved the use of a marked deck. Who marked it is irrelevant for that determination. Since the Baccarat game was not an approved/sanctioned one, the law dictates that the results be 'unwound' to return the parties (Ivey + Casino) to their respective positions before the game took place.

Now this is where things get messy/interesting, because the inescapable implication of the court's reasoning is that HAD IVEY LOST in this edge-sorting session, he would have been entitled to recoup his losses. The problem is that the informational advantage in this situation was tilted in the most extreme way towards the casino. They have access to the cards, security footage, staff, etc. In other words, they had at their disposal all of the tools and information required to mount the 'unsanctioned casino game' argument that carried the day. Ivey (in the 'I lost, but gimme my losses back, b/c it was an unsanctioned casino game' hypothetical) would have had a 100x harder time proving his side of the argument. Not to mention it would have required acknowledging that he was actively trying to exploit a casino, which likely would have been received rather unsympathetically by a NJ court. So yes, the court's reasoning ostensibly allows for recovery of losses by either Ivey or the casino, but only 1 of those parties would have a realistic chance of succeeding on that claim. Is it fair? No. Welcome to the world of gaming law. (There's also the VERY questionable conclusion by the court that Ivey is required to repay his winnings from OTHER pit games he played AFTER the Baccarat edge sorting sessions, since they were played with 'ill-gotten gains'...but that's a whole other ball of wax.)

so why are supreme court rulings usually 5 to 4 votes since they know the law so well? are 4 of them are just idiots? its because laws are vague enough for judges to rule whichever way they want and then just come up with some bull**** justification for it.

ppl here arguing that asking to turn the cards is what made ivey have to give back the money are also wrong. there was a case in vegas where ppl only noticed the deck wasnt shuffled and won over a million and the courts ruled that they had to give back their winnings too. so even just noticing a casino error is still against the rules.

I believe the case of the unshuffled cards was in Atlantic City. The principle is the same as in this case. If you know the next card coming off the deck, you are cheating in the eyes of the casino. (And most reasonable people) Not saying it is illegal in the eyes of the law, just that it is against casino terms of service. That is not the game the casino wants to offer.
The turning of the card is what gave him this advantage. If he marked the card with a pen or had some other way to determine the next card off the deck, the result is the same. The game is simply not designed to be played when you know what the next card will be.
If Ivey was edge sorting you in a high stakes poker game and had some way of knowing what cards you held, would you think he was a clever advantage player, or would you feel he was cheating?

No, this is..just...not true whatsoever. It's not cheating, and using the word 'cheating' is a gross distortion of what this or the unshuffled deck cases are all about. In both cases, the court's reasoning was that the casino was offering an unauthorized game. In the Ivey case it was because the deck was marked. In the unshuffled deck case, it's because the rules of the game dictated that the cards must be preshuffled by the dealer, but they weren't (nor did they arrive 'pre-shuffled' in accordance with regulation that allows casinos to order and use preshuffled decks). The casino was offering a game that violated the Casino Control act and was thus null and void, nothing more complicated than that. Application of the law required that the parties be returned to their respective positions before the game was dealt.

If I were the one dealing and supplying the deck, I would think he was a clever advantage player. It also wouldn't take me 4 days to figure it out.

No. See above.

Game they dealt was not authorized by the Casino Control Act, hence null and void. Noticing/exploiting something still presumably would have been fine (one of the court opinions explicitly said so, I forget which).

The law's written ambiguously enough to allow for casino-friendly interpretations from home-field advantage judges who have a vested interest in the continued profitability of casinos in their State, and in practice the casinos have a massive informational advantage in detecting irregularities and having them rectified in their favor. It's an edge you're giving up every time you walk into a casino.

I am pretty sure that "games unauthorized by the casino control act" and "games in which people are cheating" could be one and the same.

Fails the squirt-cider-in-your ear test, doesn't it?

Would you like to bet on that? We tweet @ a number of casinos and ask them "do you think it's cheating if a player knows the next card coming off the deck in a game like Baccarat". I say that more than 50% of responding casinos say that it is cheating in their eyes.