Phil Ivey, one of the top professional poker pros in the world, is being sued by Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa, a famous casino in Atlantic City, for cheating the casino out of £5.7 million or $9.6 million in baccarat. Allegedly, Ivey, who has won nine bracelets in the World Series of Poker, used a card cheating technique called edge sorting four times when he played baccarat between April and October 2012.
Ivey, helped by a friend, is reported to have found defect in cards manufactured by Kansas City firm that enabled him to sort good cards for the game, giving him an advantage over the casino on four occasions. The card cheating technique is against casino gambling rules and regulations in New Jersey. Borgata’s senior vice president Joe Lupo and Ivey’s lawyer didn’t want to comment on the lawsuit.
In the federal lawsuit, it is said that the pattern of small white circles on the back of the cards was defective. Instead of looking like tops of cut diamonds, the circles looked half or quarter of a diamond and Ivey noticed it.
Furthermore, according to the lawsuit, Ivey was helped by a dealer who flipped the cards in specific ways depending on whether the card is good or bad in baccarat. The “bad” cards were flipped in different ways so that the favorable cards remain arranged in particular order. This enabled Ivey to spot them when they were dealt. Moreover, Ivey wanted the cards to be shuffled by a machine, but this wouldn’t change the order in which the cards had been arranged.
Casino operator Genting Group also sued Ivey for similar cheating a few years back. According to this lawsuit Ivey and an associate won approximately £7 million for cheating in baccarat, but, eventually, the charges were dropped.