UK Judge Rules that Phil Ivey Cheated

In one of the most interesting gambler versus casino court cases we have seen in a very long time, Phil Ivey is today licking his wounds as a UK Judge has decided that he did cheat when the recently played at a London based casino when playing the card game Punto Banco.

This case has had a lot of commentators debating whether the method used by Ivey was in fact advantage play or was indeed cheating, and as Crockford’s Club in London which is owned by Genting Casinos UK Ltd had already decided that he had cheated, the only course of action left for Ivey who had not received his winnings of £7.7million was to take the matter to the High Court and let the judge decide.

The whole case revolved around the fact that Ivey opted to use a method known as Edge Sorting, which is a method adopted by players when it has become apparent that there is a printing flaw on the back of the playing cards, that allows the player to gain an edge over the casino when they are able to get the cards arranged in a certain way, as the printing flaws allows players to then be able to know what card is about to be dealt out of the shoe when a new game is sent into live play.

It appears that Phil Ivey who was sueing Crockfords is quite prepared to play for very high stakes, and as such Crockford’s Club allowed his to do so, but what they also allowed what the Dealer to deal and place the cards in a certain way as they were being dealt out and sorted, and by Ivey being able to then see the first card to be dealt out of the shoe on a new game he was then able to base his decision on whether to bet on the Players or Bankers hand according to the value of that soon to be dealt out card.

To cut a very long story short, the Judge in the case made his ruling yesterday and as far as he and his court were concerned Edge Sorting is a form of cheating and as such the disputed £7.7million in winnings were not valid nor legally won and as such Crockford’s Club owe Ivey nothing. Crockford’s did in fact return to Ivey £1million which he had sent to the casino as his bankroll, but as far as the High Court is concerned this is now the end of the matter, unless he chooses to appeal the decision that is!