Phil Ivey Loses High Stakes Lawsuit Against Crockfords

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Thursday, October 9th, 2014 | Written by Stephen Smith

Phil Ivey has lost his high profile court case against Crockfords in London, after a High Court judge ruled the edge-sorting technique employed by Ivey to win £7.7 million ($12.4m) from the casino was “cheating for the purpose of civil law.” As judge John Edward Mitting, concluded:

“He gave himself an advantage which the game precludes. This is in my view cheating.”

Despite being disappointed over the decision, the 38 year-old poker legend did at least express satisfaction the judge acknowledged him as a truthful witness, with Ivey stating:

“As I said in court, it is not my nature to cheat and I would never do anything to risk my reputation.”

Dates back to August 2012

Phil Ivey’s falling out with Crockfords Casino in Mayfair dates back to August 2012, when Ivey won £7.7 million playing punto banco over four sessions at the exclusive gambling club in London. At the time, staff at the world’s oldest private gaming club suspected something was not quite right and so decided to withhold payment of the money, leading to Ivey issuing court proceedings against Crockfords several months later. In response, the Genting owned casino accused Ivey of exploiting a defective pack of playing cards to gain an unfair advantage over the house, using a technique referred to as “edge-sorting.”

In addition, Phil Ivey entered the casino with Chinese woman Cheung Yin Sun (photo), who already had $1 million in winnings withheld from Atlantic City’s Borgata Hotel Casino a year earlier for similar reasons, and who subsequently aided Ivey by convincing the dealer to grant a series of unusual requests.

Convinced the croupier he was superstitious

In order to pull off such an elaborate charade, Ivey and his accomplice apparently needed to convince the croupier he was a highly superstitious gambler who wanted to keep his punto banco winning streak going by playing with the same pack of cards throughout all his sessions. This subterfuge eventually proved a key factor in the court case, and as Judge Mitting explained in his ruling:

“Mr Ivey had gained himself an advantage and did so by using a croupier as his innocent agent or tool. It was not simply taking advantage of error on her part or an anomaly practiced by the casino, for which he was not responsible. He was doing it in circumstances where he knew that she and her superiors did not know the consequences of what she had done at his instigation. This is, in my view, cheating for the purpose of civil law.”

Legality of Edge Sorting?

Phil Ivey’s main argument revolved around convincing the court his edge-sorting technique was merely a legitimate strategy to exploit weaknesses in the casino’s system, with the pro, stating:

“I believe that what we did was a legitimate strategy and we did nothing more than exploit Crockfords’ failures to take proper steps to protect themselves against a player of my ability.”

However, a casino industry which doesn’t even permit card counting at blackjack was never going to accept a player using an advantage gambling technique such as edge-sorting, especially with Ivey actively involving the croupier by getting him to rotate the card 180 degrees for ‘good luck,’ but really so he could read the cards more easily. As casino surveillance expert Willy Allison, explains:

“Essentially, playing the turn has the same effect as marking the cards and gives players a huge house edge. Who needs invisible ink and red-tinted sunglasses when you’ve got manufacturer-made “marked cards.”

Ivey says “not my nature to cheat”

While Phil Ivey lost his multi-million pound court case against Crockfords, on a more positive note he was at least afforded the opportunity to make his case concerning the issue of edge-sorting, which he basically continues to view as not cheating and nothing illegal.

Ivey also expressed satisfaction his testimony was viewed as truthful by the judge, and that he had managed to defend the assault on his character by Crockfords. As well as being one of the most respected poker players in the world, Phil Ivey is also one of the games most successful pros having won 10-WSOP bracelets throughout a career which has seen him amass $21,457,073 in winnings from live tournaments, as well as a further $14,149,967 playing cash games online at Full Tilt Poker.

Phil Ivey has also been a welcome high rolling patron of casinos across the globe, either in his capacity as a poker player or when he is simply making million dollars bets at the casinos table games. Therefore, if the court case had turned nastier, Ivey could have found himself on a casino black list enforced by casinos across the globe, and as Ivey explained in a recent interview on ‘60 Minutes Sports‘:

“Once you get ‘cheater’ next to your name — especially in my business, which is the business of gambling — it’s really bad.. Some people believe it was cheating. I know it wasn’t.”