It is a huge factor in terms of arguing a point in a court.

Lets say you are taking me to court claiming that I owe you $2,000 for a loan you gave me in January.

However, it is my argument that I paid you back in cash and all is well.

We come to court and I show the judge that you wrote me a check for $300 three months to buy my used laptop.

Why would you give me money if I owed you $2k?

Back to the Crocksford argument. If I'm on Phil Ivey's team, I would investigate Crocksford and other casinos who have irrefutable evidence of players cheating. Then I will show that when this is the case, it is a common practice for these casinos to KEEP the money in play. Thus, I will argue the fact that Crocksford not doing this is indicative that Crocksford does not think Phil Ivey cheated and thus are conspiring to not pay him...




Then, I will present additional arguments that Crocksford knew about edge sorting and simply felt that they would still win and thus granted Phil Ivey's requests but only AFTER they discovered that Phil Ivey was good enough to beat them with the edge sorting Crocksford had a change of heart and wanted to alter the game. Phil Ivey refused, and now Crocksford is conspiring to not pay Ivey...

And because Crocksford is the casino and the experts and the party that held all the power in this contest: their house, their rules, their cards, their dealers.... an extraordinary burden of liability falls on them...

I think that is something a lot in this thread just don't get. I think many ITT believe both parties are equal here in the eyes of the law AND THAT IS NOT TRUE IF ANYTHING CROCKSFORD IS AT A HUGE DISADVANTAGE HERE AND HAS TO OVERCOME A LOT OF BURDEN!!!

But if you claim you're superstitious and that is the reason for the request then you're suddenly cheating?

1- I asked you. When do YOU think Crockford's suspected that Ivey was edge sorting?

2- Do you find their answer to be credible?

I'm sure you have figured out where I am going with this by now..

One minor problem is that it is not common practice to do this but hey ho.


what evidence that they knew what he was doing? There is none.

There is a claim that they (and Borgata and at least 2 others) SHOULD have been aware but there is no evidence at all that this was the case, it is also not what PI claims either. He admits to trying to circumvent their security measures and says he managed it.

PI does say that even using his strategy it is possible to lose, which is true, but sadly for Phil that matters not at all to whether he cheated, there is no need to show he won by cheating or even that he profited at all.

Asked and answered - I think that both Phil Ivey and the casino are being truthful in their accounts to the court. That's why there is no dispute about what happened. PI is not claiming that they were aware of what he was doing, he seems happy to explain how he persuaded staff to alter the game, that they were unawarwe of the cumulative effect of his various startagems to corrupt the normal protections usually followed by rote without full understanding by the staff of why - he just doesn't think its cheating.

It is credible that PI has been getting away with it for ages and that Crockfords was the first to spot it, its entirely consistent with what happened at multiple venues.

This could only happen if one of us lied before the court. I think I could still win if the original loan was well documented and the payback wasn't. But I think we can stop this derail, since both parties agree on what happened. We seem to be on the same side anyway, and only disagree on the importance of the returned money.


I'm more interested in why the casino not disclosing the sucker bet (egalite) in their booklet isn't at least as deceptive as what Ivey did.

The funny thing is, this sort of behavior happens all the time in the business world. People sell things all the time thinking they're getting the best of it only to find out they got royal screwed because they didn't do their own due diligence and research.

It's equivalent to someone selling land not knowing there is a fortune of oil under it, finding out after they signed the deal, and then not turning over the deed to the property. The deal was already done (as soon as they dealt the first card). That doesn't give them any legal right to go back on the payment after the fact.

So ridiculous that people see Ivey at fault here. Might as well start suing any businessman that got a great deal on anything!

No its not, and you are simply suspending belief to make a legally facetious argument.

It is not credible that:

1 A casino doing business for almost 200 years didn't recognize edge sorting
2 The dealer, pit boss, supervisor, and floor personnel didn't recognize edge sorting
3 Security staff didn't recognize edge sorting
4 Eyes in the sky didn't recognize edge sorting
5 They forgot all of their extensive training concerning edge sorting
6 They forgot all of the seminars concerning edge sorting they attended


If they were unsure of edge sorting, they could have used something invented by Al Gore called THE INTERWEBS to research it, by using THE GOOGLE app invented by George Bush. you can type in a word or phrase and it will tell you what it means. Or are you going to claim that Crockfords lost their laptops and computers and could not use THE GOOGLE?

Nope. Either:

1- Crockfords and its management, staff, and security people are the most incompetent in the industry. Something Crocksford would deny

2- They knew what Ivey was doing and felt they still had an edge on him anyway.

They free rolled him. The Borgata and the Canadian casino did the same thing. Lets see what all the employees and cameras have to say.

exactly. And since they have all the power and expertise, the BURDEN and LIABILITY falls on them.

Phil Ivey doesn't have to move mountains to prove they freerolled him. He doesn't have to put them on the stand and break them ala Tom Cruise vs Jack Nicholsan "You can't handle the truth... Yes I ordered the goddam Code Red" ....

No. The burden and liability is on Crocksford and I can't see them being able to claim ignorance because ignorance is no excuse.

They agreed to the terms, agreed to the game, and they lost. Pure and simple. They got outplayed.

Crocksford can put all the window dressing on their arguments and throw all the redherrings they want: The Chinese lady cheated somewhere else, they requested Chinese dealers only, they were speaking in Mandarin, we didn't know what he was doing, the edge sorting gave Phil Ivey an unfair advantage...

yada yada yada...

At the end of the day, none of that matters because Crocksford not only agreed to every stipulation and condition Phil Ivey proposed, they also had 100% of the power in running the game that both parties agreed to.

Yeah, I used to work for a company that made high tech equipment. We tried to screw one of our suppliers by requiring them to "fix" the price of a key part (their part had $1,500 worth of gold in it not to mention other stuff + labor). We thought we were being clever because the price of gold was going up and so we stuck it to them in a contract that no matter what, the price of this part was going to cost $2,000 (other suppliers would charge us $3k for the same part).

The supplier said they would only agree to take this sort of risk and bear the brunt of this cost if we agreed to contractually lock in with them through the life cycle of our product lines. Well, my company was ecstatic to include that in the contract and was even more aggressive in the language citing that no matter what the price is the price is the price and it will be held at $2k (this was going to save us Millions of dollars!!!!). The supplier carefully maneuvered the wording of the contract to focus on the part meeting specification (spec).

Unbeknownst to us, the supplier had developed a revolutionary new process enabling them to make the same part but instead of using gold they could meet our spec using silver and some proprietary polymer they developed. So now, instead of using $1,500 worth of gold they could get the same result using $80 worth of silver and plastic

They released this new product and retired the old product one month after we brow beat them into the new contract (the part took them 2 years to develop so they already had it during our negotiations).

Immediately, my company went apeshtt and tried to brow beat and negotiate a new contract. My company was all up in arms about how "unfair" it was and how they took advantage of us

Amazing how the powers that be in my company were able to delude themselves that they were the victims...

Hi Everyone:

I think there's something that many of you are missing (but I haven't read all the posts so perhaps it has already been mentioned). But it has to do with the idea that the casino is freerolling. That is, if the casino wins they keep the money, and if Ivey wins they get the money back.

But there's a problem with this argument and it is that the advantage baccarat edge sorting produces is so large that as long as Ivey plays a reasonable length of time, and it appears that this is what he did, he virtually can't lose.So the casino cannot freeroll.

Bestr wishes,
Mason

Is it plausible that the casino knew it changed the odds in Ivey's favour but didn't know it gave him such a large advantage that he couldn't be free-rolled?

Well said.

I'm not sure if it's the same over there, but in the USA I'd fear this case wouldn't go Ivey's way due to the dong judges being similar to the dong lawmakers who actually do things like allow us "free" Americans to live in a world where we can't play on PokerStars and can't engage in any form of gambling that isn't government approved. #butfreedom

I hope the judge see this for what it is and tells the casino to pay Ivey all funds owed + interest then fines them for their dishonest business practice.

The doc quoted was a UKGC document.

Also not always 8-1, this LCI leaflet for Punto Banco, 9=1 and some specific

http://www.manchester235.com/uploads...unto_banco.pdf

Sure he can lose.

Regardless he negotiated favorable terms that shifted the advantage to his side. The casino was under no obligation to agree to the terms and take his action. They did. They could have stopped and altered the game. They didn't. I do not see how it was Iveys responsibility to disclose "why" he was making his "requests". And how that invalidates his winnings?

Don Johnson negotiated Loss Rebates that shifted things in his favor in BJ. Did he have to disclose why he was making his specific requests? Did he have to disclose that he hired several mathematicians to run the numbers? Did he have to disclose his quit points and his optimal strategy? The casino has there own computer models. They took his action. They lost. They paid the man.

BTW Mason, Do you believe they did NOT know Ivey was edge sorting? How likely is that? Thx

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...c-city/308900/


Or that he would successfully execute his strategy.

I understand that their lawyers are using bright colours as this technique always makes an argument more credible

I'm not sure we are using the same definition of the term freeroll. If the casino can feign ignorance and then not have to pay, then it doesn't matter how favorable the odds are for Phil Ivey.

When they win, they take his money, when they lose they pretend ignorance, give the excuse they have never heard of edge sorting, then withhold his winnings and send him back his original stake.

This is a 100% infallable +EV strategy on their part regardless of the edge Phil obtains by edge sorting unless I'm missing something????

Jajaja

The thing that both you and Mason are missing is that if the staff were stupid enough to try to freeroll Ivey, they were also stupid enough to miss the point that the edge they were giving was so big that there was little chance that he wouldn't win.

You have missed out reputational harm, bad PR, legal costs and the obvious...multiple casinos before Crockfords paid out, that the +ev play is just to prevent their small punto banco edge being eroded, just deal it with the odds they expect rather than dicking with "advantage" players.

Yet super expert enough to detect it immediately? You can't have both.

Staff falures and the casino being a bit dim....true. Your theory that they were super aware and super clever and then went to the third level to freeroll him, BS...even after being down 3M on day one they let him have another go? Really?......this is just risible, it is nonsense fanboy stuff.

Phil was very clever (well acutally his accomplice did it he was the front man) and the casino was duped. Well done clever Ivey, now, let's see how the judge rules.

I doubt they were intentionally free rolling him - they just didn't initially spot what was going on and foolishly ignored their usual procedures & agreed to make a deal that let him get the best of it... now they're pissed off and are trying to use a legal angle to keep 7.3 mil.

I wonder if even they think their case is weaker than his - even if you only thought you had say a 30% chance of success in the case it is still well worth stumping up the legal fees in order to win the 7.3 million settlement.

I have blocked Richas, but still see his stuff when I'm not logged in. He has, not for the first time, completely missed the point of my post.

Rereading your post it does seem that I missed your rather wierd way of saying that if they were stupid enough to miss the significant edge then they would also likely be too stupid to detect it in the first place. I thought you were backing the nonsensical idea that Ivey was freerolled.

Occam's razor, they (and Borgata and others) were stupid enough to miss the scam and nobody is stupid enough to detect it and then do some impossible freeroll they can't win on.

Ouch!! That's a PERFECT example dgi. Whoever missed it in your company is the one at fault, not the other company for negotiating to their benefit.

Just the idea that people think it was Ivey's responsibility to protect the casinos bottom line is ludicrous! It's kind of worrying how many people see it that way... Any businessman who has done any negotiating at all would be laughing his ass off at the posters in this thread. Sucker born every minute and all that I suppose.