Home / Poker News September 2013 / Phil Ivey’s Legal Row with Crockfords Casino Continues
Phil Ivey’s Legal Row with Crockfords Casino Continues
Posted by: Randy Williams - Mon, 2013-09-16 11:24
A little over a year ago, Phil Ivey showed up at London’s Crockfords Casino with a Chinese associate of his, to play high stakes Punto Banco. The two of them did what they did and after two nights of action, they accumulated £7.8 million in profits. The problems started when they tried to cash out to leave with the money: the casino decided that foul play was involved in the spectacular winning spree and it withheld the money. Since then, the casino has returned Ivey’s initial stake of about £1 million, but the
poker player is still looking to be paid the full amount.
The other day, a host of new details emerged regarding the case which is slowly but surely shaping into the biggest legal battle in casino history.
According to the Daily Mail UK, which allegedly gained access to the court documents, Ivey has admitted that he was an advantage player indeed. He argues though that the technique known as “edge sorting” that he and his associate used, was in fact perfectly legitimate.
The technique is basically about reading a printing pattern error on the edge of the cards in order to make an educated guess about which card is up next. According to the court documents, Ivey and his associate had asked to see several decks of cards before they identified one with the printing error and opted for it. Ivey’s associate, whose name is Kelly, even asked the dealer to turn the cards a certain way so he could find the right cards better.
Once the two players managed to sort their edges, they asked for the maximum bet to be raised significantly.
The casino argues that Ivey scammed them, defeating the essential premise of the game, although the truth is probably that they simply failed to spot what the two players were up to.
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