Poker Player Phil Ivey Loses £7.7m Casino Case
This was published 27-10-2017Phil Ivey, a 10-time winner of the World Series of Poker and one of the world’s top poker players, has lost his case in the UK Supreme Court where he was endeavoring to reclaim an amount of £7.7m in winnings that was withheld by a London casino for five years.
The American poker player was challenging a Court of Appeal judgment that Crockfords Club could refuse to pay up after Ivey won the £7.7m playing a version of the card game Baccarat, known as Punto Banco at Crockfords Club in Mayfair, central London, in 2012 together with Cheung Yin Sun, a fellow gambler.
At the time, Genting, the owners of the casino, refused to pay out the amount as they claimed that the two players had jointly used the technique of “edge-sorting”, which involves identifying minute differences in the patterns on the back of playing cards and exploiting that information in order to increase their chances of winning. According to Genting, this was not a legitimate strategy.
Ivey argued that the technique was not a form of cheating as it did not involve dishonesty. He also said that he had simply exploited Crockfords’ failure to take proper steps to protect itself against a gambler of his ability and he was, therefore, entitled to claim his full winnings, instead of having only his initial stake of £1m returned to him.
Ivey once again found himself on the losing side of the case, with the Supreme Court upholding the 2014 Court of Appeal’s ruling that the edge sorting technique gave Ivey an unfair advantage that falls under the definition of cheating.
In May of 2013, Ivey explained that he had taken the case court as he had been given a receipt for his winnings at the time but that Crockfords had subsequently withheld payment, leaving him with no alternative but to take legal action.
Lady Justice Arden explained the ruling by saying that Ivey and Sun interfered with the process of the game, and therefore, were not entitled to the winnings that came as a result.
Ivey revealed that he was upset as he had played an honest game and won fairly. He added that his integrity is infinitely more important to him than a big win.
