Phil Ivey Must Return $10.1m to Borgata

Posted by Harry Kane on Thursday, December 29, 2016

Last month, we told you about world-famous poker player Phil Ivey losing appeal over £7.7m baccarat winnings, which he had accumulated at the Crockfords Club in Mayfair in 2012. Genting Casinos UK, who own Crockfords Club, told the player they would transfer the money to his bank account but later only wired the £1 million stake he had spent at the casino.

As terrible a loss that might have been for the pro poker player, at least he never got that money. A much worse scenario would have been if he had received the money and spent it only to be ordered by the court to return it years later. Well, 2016 is definitely not Phil Ivey’s year because that’s exactly what happened only about a month after the Crockfords Club court ruling.

The player, widely known as ‘the Tiger Woods of poker’, has just been ordered by a federal judge to hand over the $10.1m he won at Borgata Casino in 2012. The biggest casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, filed a lawsuit against Ivey back in 2014 but it was only in 2016 that the case was given a substantial push.

The Borgata representatives played the victim, admitting they had agreed to the demands of Ivey and his playing partner Cheng Yin Sun, an alleged master of ‘edge sorting’, because they trusted him. They claimed they were unaware that requests, such as letting the players select specific decks of cards and agreeing to turn the cards in a particular way, were not only eliminating the house edge but giving the two players a substantial advantage over the house.

Ivey and Sun, on the other hand, said that edge sorting is not illegal and neither is being an advantage player. They also argued that it wasn’t their fault the cards had defects that made edge sorting possible in the first place. Gemaco Inc. of Blue Springs, Missouri, the manufacturer of the playing cards, is, indeed, included in Borgata’s original complaint of 2012. Ivey and Sun filed a countersuit, claiming the Borgata lawsuit should be dismissed because the casino had destroyed the cards used in the games.

Earlier this year, the court declared that ‘even though Ivey and Sun’s cunning and skill did not break the rules of Baccarat, what sets Ivey and Sun’s actions apart from deceitful maneuvers in other games is that those maneuvers broke the rules of gambling as defined in this state’.

As a result, the Borgata were given a few weeks to assess their losses. In early December, they came out with a claim for $15.5m, which includes the $10.1m they had already paid out and $5.4m in what the casino thinks they would have won if Ivey had played fair. The casino management also wanted nearly $250k in comps returned.

The court has just ruled that ten-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Phil Ivey and his partner Cheng Yin Sun must return the $10.1m they had won at the Borgata in 2012. Ivey’s attorney, Ed Jacobs, said that Ivey had ‘beat the casino at its own game’ and would appeal the ruling.