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- Poker pro Phil Ivey has yet to repay the Borgata Casino $9.6 million following "cheating" scandal
- Ivey and gal pal were able to spot defective cards while playing baccarat to give them edge
- Judge denied Borgata additional money damages in form of restitution
- Borgata lawyers claim if he can still play, he can pay, pointing to buy-ins and wins for recent events
Poker pro Phil Ivey was ordered to pay back the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City $9.6 million after allegedly cheating them out of $9.6 million at the baccarat table. Lawyers for the poker player have been holding up repayment it seems and the Borgata is now demanding their money now.
How We Got Here
Ivey and a companion, Cheng Yin Sun, won the $10 million from the Atlantic City casino while playing cards that were arranged in a certain way to give the players an edge. The casino also claimed that the cards were defective.
The cards had rows of small white circles designed to look like the tops of cut diamonds, but the Borgata said some of them were only half-diamonds or quarters.
The order by U.S. District Court Judge Noel Hillman essentially returned both sides to where they were before Ivey and Sun began gambling at the Borgata by demanding Ivey pay back the casino.
"This case involves the whims of Lady Luck, who casts uncertainty on every hand, despite the house odds," Hillman wrote in his opinion. "Indeed, Lady Luck is like nectar to gamblers, because no one would otherwise play a game he knows he will always lose."
He added that deciding the case involved "voiding a contract that was tainted from the beginning and breached as soon as it was executed."
In some ways, the decision favored Ivey as the judge shot down the Borgata's attempts to collect restitution that went as high as $15.5 million.
Not Everyone Believes Ivey is a Cheater
Noted gambling attorney Nelson Rose told Gambling911.com in an exclusive interview that Ivey is not a cheater, at least when one considers the evidence that has been brought forth thus far.
"Edge sorting has been around for decades," Rose told Gambling911.com. "I was called in as an expert witness in a marked card case and one of the first things I did was look to see if there was a pattern to the design on the back of the cards.
"Cheats can easily create a deck of cards they can read by buying many decks of cards with a simple pattern, like diamond shapes, and then creating a single deck where, say, only the ten-count cards have full diamonds in the corners." But in a casino, he said, it is the responsibility of the casino to make sure everything in a game is ship-shape, not the player.
"It is up to the casino to make sure that there are no readable markings on the backs of cards," Rose said. "I remember touring the Sands Casino in Macau the month it opened and looking into the room where employees destroyed cards after a single use.
"Ivey used information available to all players," he said. "By definition that was not cheating."
What About That Payment?
Ivey’s lawyers have been holding up the actual repayment for years now on the grounds that it would cause “irreparable harm” to Ivey.
But the Borgata has been monitoring Ivey's appearances closely and realized he had the ability to play in this summer's World Series of Poker event, while winning a massive $ 1,666,480 in the HK$ 1,000,000 No Limit Hold'em - Short Deck Ante Only 1M back in May.
From HighStakesDB.com:
Since Ivey clearly “has no problem coming up with” buy ins for the WSOP and that “he is in the top 3 for poker winnings all time, and there is no suggestion that he cannot continue to be successful,” they claim that “he is not in danger of being prevented from playing poker.”
