I want to be the Tiger Woods of "knocking over the cheesy poofs".

sounds like the casino just doesn't want to pay up.  can't imagine him "cheating" and them allowing him to walk out of the casino knowing that he cheated.

Ha! It will take years before they could prove it...lawyers are very good on twisting things around...on the other hand, the monies will be gone by then before they go to prison, the lawyer will take it all! hehehehe...

Always fun hearing about these kinds of stories.

No matter how tight the security and procedures are, no matter how confident the house is in their guaranteed mathematical advantage, players always find a way. 

I guess in these Borgata games players didn't "squeeze" or mangle the cards as they were played. Lots of placed I've played baccarat with lots of asian players, the cards get so mangled that they cannot shuffle and reuse them, so this ploy wouldn't work.

If the cards were defective then why did the casino use them?  The guy is a nine time poker champion so obviously he knows

what he's doing. Sounds like the casino is mad cause they got beat.

I don't get it.  Doesn't the casino supply the cards?  So, if there was a defect that he spotted and took advantage of, why is the casino suing him?  How about the dealer?  Did he/she get fired and being sued?  Is the card manufacturer being sued too?

This sounds like a frivolous lawsuit.

I enjoy watching the world poker tour and the world series of poker on tv.  It's hard to believe these charges would be brought without the evidence intact.  It would hurt the gambling industry's reputation to be wrong and they need it to discourage other cheaters. 

When the gaming commissions of New Jersey, Malaysia, and Las Vegas get after you it might as well be the fbi or cia.   Between the card maker, the dealer, and Ivey's accomplice a good guess would be that one of them rolled over for a plea bargain lessor charge because these alligations carrying serious consequences if proven.

If the charges stick his career is over.  Lets hope justice is done either way in spite of the bitterness some have toward the casino industry.

http://apheat.net/2013/12/10/edge-sorting-101/

If a casino is to cheap to buy quality playing cards with symmetric designs, they deserve what they get. If a casino is to cheap to replace a deck when it shows wear, they deserve to lose. If casinos are too cheap to buy flip-flop card sorters, they deserve to be taken advantage of.

The house allowed him to play knowing full well that his a seasoned player.It's quite possible that they had beaten him in the past- this time he came loaded for bear and walked away with millions.
If you don't like the competition- don't allow them in.Did he win those championships by cheating, if not its a matter of " spilt milk" by the house.

“One of the most closely-guarded secrets in the upper echelons of casino advantage (+) play is the practice of card sorting, known as “the turn” … The technique is predicated on the imperfections in the manufacturing process of casino playing cards. The backs of the cards, which generally contain some sort of repeating diamond or geometrical pattern, are often asymmetrical. If examined closely, it will be revealed that the top and bottom or right and left edges of the cards are not identical …

I read a while, but got bored, and I dont really see the imperfections as they explain it.

In the oceans eleven movie they got into the dice manufacturer, and they tampered with the dice.  Like the loaded dice in octopu$$y.  Malaysia must have James bond working for them. 

If the manufacturer created a faulty card then the manufacturer could have a mole.

P.S. You could never pull this off with my geico playing cards.

Another lousy excuse not to pay up. JUST PAY THE MAN.

The casino is full of bull you know what, that person has no need to do as they claim, besides they should not be able to fairly prove it, they don't want to pay him that is all.

Whenever somebody wins big money, the casinos always claim that the person violated some kind of gambling rule.

Casinos are full of, well I already said what they are full of.

They should just declare that winning is against casinos' gambling rules.

----------------------------

Just as the lottery outfits say that people can only win by chance and therefore the same person can't keep on winning often as it is against probability rules.

So that if somebody wins often and makes a regular profit that person must be cheating as Math says that that is not possible to do as the lottery games are games of chance and the odds are heavily against anybody winning often and making a regular profit.

They are also full of bull, Math people seem to know nothing about statistical prediction.

He already got the money, now the casino wants it back!

They're the ones that messed up. Let Phil have his money, and now they know better. Did he really commit a crime? A court will decide I guess.

$9.6 mil? Heck, that's chump change for them. Sheldon Adelson dumped $10M on a superpac trying to buy an election, so that's nothing to those guys.

Seems to me that the casinos are the criminals, when people lose they don't give them their money back.

Yeah, I love a good heist movie like Oceans Eleven, Now You See Me, or the classic The Sting.

So, these asymmetric cards, maybe somebody knew about it. Not the casino owner of course, but somebody down lower like the guy that buys the cards for the casino. Maybe somebody wanted cards in play that could be edge sorted by some other player at a later date.

Kinda like when you hear about problems with lottery draws, or defects in scratch cards that allowed someone an advantage or could to determine winners. I always wonder, maybe the defect was put there by someone on purpose... Hmmm...

Never been to a casino in my lifetime, but it sounds like the casino ppl are sore loosers and they want their money back.

If this becomes a drawn out court case- watch for it on HOBO starring Jesse Eisenberg.

Sam Rothstein would have known.

The problem with heist movies is they dont have good understanding of physics. 

There always seems to be a small asian guy who happens to defy gravity.

I did take a look back at the article and I can see the defect now.

It happens that the ◊ background was not uniformly bisected in all the templates.

It was off by perhaps 6 pixels are so.

In the Kevin Spacey movie, maybe that was something that wasn't mentioned, but they were also improvising with.

Casinos get cards and dice from different suppliers, the most common one in Vegas fopr a long time was Paulson.

The dice had a reputation for being favorable to the players and the old time bosses called them "Passing Paulsons".

Kinda like when you hear about problems with lottery draws, or defects in scratch cards that allowed someone an advantage or could to determine winners. I always wonder, maybe the defect was put there by someone on purpose... Hmmm...

Over the years I've read about the occasional mess up with lottery drawings that were missed by the auditors but instead of players taking advantages of them they usually notify the lotteries and complain about them, that's what happen when Tennessee computers didn't allow doubles in their pick3 and pick4 games.  One would have thought with 20% of the possible combinations eliminated that players have been playing more until it was discovered.

My thoughts,too. The house allowed him in the door knowing he was a strategic player/winner. They assumed they could take his money because the house is tilted to win. And when the house didnt win.. they cry defective cards-their OWN cards...

The winner beat them at their own game. Some casinos dont allow whales in because of their success rate....didnt this one know that ?

What is a baccarat?

Baccarat is a card game where the players bet on bank, player, or tie.

In the blackjack pits there is uisually one or two 'mini' baccarat games........they look like 21 tables but the game layout is different.

"Big Bac" has its own pit and that's where a lot more money is bet.

Thank you...now I know how it works.

"Ten measures of beauty descended to the world, nine were taken by Jerusalem." Talmud Kiddushin 49b. "The Gutenberg Bible"

I found a graphic which details how the sting went down. Pretty slick there Phil! 

http://www.pocketfives.com/articles/borgata-sues-phil-ivey-over-9-6-million-baccarat-win-589425/

I find it strange for a woman to be a banker, I guess it's possible.

What century are you from?  You certainly are insulting the women and especially the professionally educated women on this site. My mother was (retired now) an accountant and a bank VP. And I have several friends from college who are bankers.

I guess instead we should all just post pics of us in our nighties and email the men and ask for their pics and whine how bored we are??? It is hard for me to believe you live in the United States. 

Sheldon Adelson who is one of the wealthiest man on earth and Phil Ivey are not in the same league in terms of wealth. It may very well be "chump change" for Sheldon Adelson but certainly not for Phil Ivey.

Speaking of campaign contributions, George Soros donated north of a hundred million dollars toward Obama's re-election and the sad part is that with voter fraud, deception and using the IRS to suppress the opposition none of that money was even needed.

Not sure what world you live in but here in the United States there are plenty of female bankers.

I've never been to a casino, that's why...pardon my ignorance.

Uh...OK, I think you completely misunderstood my post.

I said: "They're the ones that messed up. Let Phil have his money,"

They being the casino. They agreed to the terms of the game set by Phil, and now they are suing him to get their money back when it backfired on them.

I said: "$9.6 mil? Heck, that's chump change for them."

Them being a continuation of the casino and by ownership, the owner. And of course, I know that Sheldon Adelson is a billionaire and has much more disposable money to throw around than Phil Ivey, the little guy, so I said let Phil have his money. They're just pis'd that they got hustled.

I then gave a relevant example, that as a casino owner, Sheldon Adelson threw away (on a losing bet) a similar amount to $9.6M, namely $10M to Romney's cause.(and much more to other losing campaigns)

FYI,

I'm opposed to ALL this outside influence of massive campaign donations in superPACs both ALL sides, be it Adelson, Soros, or the Koch Brothers, who's spending dwarfed Soros or anyone else in 2012. It's all an abomination.

What i find amazing is that the casinos always investigate players for big win but you will never hear of players investigating casinos for big lost. Ivey has a clean record and casinos have a dirty record so am not sure who needs to be proven guilty first and all this news on public opinion is a damage news if you have a case take it to the court and find him gulty first in a court room. The casinos know what they can afford to pay on every game so if there is a problem you know his face very well , so don't let him play or when he starts betting millions don't go against him because everyone that goes against him doesn't stand much of a chance anyway.I will wait for the judge and the jury opinion first b4 i conclude but for now the man is innocent till proven guilty. And worst case sceneria even if ivey is guilty well it is called bluffing not a crime lol

Oh...OK, Thanks for clarifying your post.

I do agree that the casino should leave Phil alone and let him keep his money. Phil was on the look out for any advantage and used it to the of his ability. He didn't supply the cards or the dealer so I feel the casino has an uphill battle to get their money back.

Yep, Phil was playing by the casino's rules, and, with the casino's cards. No foul from where I'm standing!!! Know what? I hate sore losers. I mean, I down right hate 'em!! Especially when you beat 'em at their own game at their own house!!! It's just pathetic.

L.L.

Point well taken about "ACE" LB

While we are on the subject of the old cat & mouse  game between casino & players, permit me to share some humble insight on the mangement mind set of casino cat as I have witnessed it in Las Vegas for approx 25 years.

The casinos & game operators offer a negative expectation lossing proposition called gambling as an entertainment. Playing customes be it table games, lottery or slot players are suppose to lose according to odds posted (average). When player's winning exceeds by over coming the built in negative mathematical formulas, then flags go up for supervisory staff to examine what is going wrong with that gme that is adversely affecting their profits (drop rate). First thing is player will be identified & recorded  & their action will be videotaped for inspection; it doesn't matter if winnngs are' a result of some new advanatge methodology, player cheating or player dealer collaboration, out of the box technology or even a acceptable lucky streak in any form of speculation

Once the cause & effect of their irregular loses are known, then countermeasures & trouble shooters are vigorously applied to suppress or elemenate the problem makers. If it's cheating the use of security & law will have 0 tolorence

Bye the Bye, all over the top wiiner's pix & ID is shared with participating casino secuirity network world wide. Isn't sharing secretly taken pix unconstitutional???

Rememeber, you are being offered a losing chance & player should should adorn his best face &  accept & like it..... again it's ony a amusement game and not intended for anyone to make a living, let alone become wealthy at the operator's bottom line expense.

Ask ACE for verification, I think he is still bookmaking in Florida

Than you for your consideration

FOURTUNA ABUDONZA

EddessaKnight

PS

If games were unbeatable, why is it necessary for operators touse countermeasures against players?

As you said, the Borgata agreed to the gambling conditions Ivey set, but now are suing him because according them "he lied about why he wanted those conditions".  The practice of whales and high rollers getting different gaming conditions than the average player was around for years, but it's been more competitive since 2008. Some casinos quickly agreed to the conditions without checking to see if the conditions give the player the edge.

A gambler named Don Johnson won millions playing Black Jack in AC because of the conditions he set and other than the casino saying they won't be inviting Johnson back, they paid him his full winnings. I believe the difference with Ivey is because he won $11.7 million from a London casinos after setting the same conditions. From what I've read, both casino agreed to using marked decks and are complaining after they lost.

I had to delete several posts. Please do not revisit the topics that I have deleted.

The casinos need to stop buying those cheaper off-shore produced playing cards ...

I especially like the way he used the Chinese chick, and demanding a dealer speaking Mandarin.

That was a key to finalizing the hustle, by getting the casino's own dealer to become an unwitting participant in the sting. And since they were talking to eachother in Mandarin, the pit boss and anyone watching from the eye in the sky would have a hard time catching what was going on...unless they spoke Mandarin too.

"Ivey also made special arrangements, including having a private area, or pit, a casino dealer who spoke Mandarin Chinese, one eight-deck shoe of purple Gemaco playing cards to be used for each session of the play, and an automatic card shuffling device."

I play baccarat at our local California card casinos occasionally, which means there are Chinese people jumping all over me.  So I can just picture that Cheng Yin Sun girl telling the dealer, maybe talking down to her, "hey, you turn card, bad luck for mr. Ivey. you turn now!" <in Mandarin of course>

They could make a movie out of this.

Actually you were partly correct because in the game Ivey was playing, the bank is neither male or female. The bank an amount of money the casino is willing to lose on that table. The woman in the depiction is the dealer though in a variation of Baccarat, the players banking or booking the bets is called the "banker". Sheldon Adelson owns the Borgata so he was the "banker" in this story.

There were and probably still are woman casino owners. Claudine Williams owned the Holiday Casino and Becky Benion had controlling interest in Horseshoe. And Debbie Reynolds owned a casino too.

"pardon my ignorance."

Only one out of the three women I mentioned were successful with their casinos and it looks like you're being nit-picked about the usage of the term "banker".

Thank you.

My apologies, Todd...I can see mine were deleted. I got a little carried away sometimes with all the information I keep up with. I'll keep it within the blogs from now on.

L.L.

I think he was tipped off about the cards and when he kept winning, the casino noticed this and let him continue to figure out how he did it. Thought they always changed dealers when their losing.

"Ivey and an associate exploited a defect in cards.."

really????...we could apply this to lottery playing whether cash3 or cash 4.The next time you run across a method that works in a backtest

short or long term,try not to feel guilty about winning.

Aren't we all here 'exploiting' or at least trying to find a flaw in a game with patterns,,lonest outs,TTT's date theories.etc..??..It was legal last time I knew.

Well a good system can definately cause a matrix change, I would assume.

But for me I am not really concerned about the winning. And I am not trying to exploit anything.  I am just trying to follow the zodiac and my lucky numbers.

Really I am doing it for the kids.

For their edumacation.

Isn't it odd that when the casinos are accused of cheating after emptying their clients bank account no one seems to care but when it happens to them they want to be portrayed as the victim.

Sorry but I'm with Phil on this one.

Sounds like a classic case of, "I can do it to you, but you can't do it to me." WTG Phil. 

Phil Ivey is becoming a world class hustler. Another poker player owed Ivey $900,000 from a golfing bet, but refused to payoff saying Ivey lied about his golfing skills.

From the AP:

A lawsuit filed in Britain's High Court by the Malaysia-based Genting Group, a major casino operator, makes a similar claim against Ivey.

It alleges Ivey and an accomplice amassed almost $12 million by cheating at baccarat. In that case, Ivey has denied any misconduct.

Those sentences are in this news story.

If Ivey won because of skill, luck, card counting, or reading the back of defective cards then he should win.  However, if he or his partner were marking cards, switching cards, or the DEALER WAS DIRECTLY INVOLVED WITH THE CHEAT then he should lose.  We don't know that yet.   What we "do know" is the posters on this thread are glad he stuck it to the casinos whether it was legal or not.  Thats not surprising considering human nature.  Don't pull against the casinos because they are rich or because you never could afford to go visit. 

These are not the kind of threads to post on before thinking or one winds up looking weak minded.   Stick to the threads entitled "Where is the first place you will visit after you win 100 million dollars?".   Thats in their wheel house unless pills & booze mess that up to haha 

Nice thread Todd keep them coming.

However, if he or his partner were marking cards, switching cards, or the DEALER WAS DIRECTLY INVOLVED WITH THE CHEAT then he should lose.

There was no mention of marking cards or switching cards, nor any implication of the dealer being complicit the operation. All reports indicate he never marked cards, and never even touched the cards. Please don't inject unsubstantiated claims into the topic or sully the reputation of the dealer who is by all accounts an innocent party. And also, please don't cast aspersions on the character of LP posters ad nauseam without knowing the facts of the case. Their comments were based on the published details of the incident. Let justice run its course before passing judgement.

These are not the kind of threads to post on before thinking or one winds up looking weak minded.

Agreed.

Look geek i already said we have to wait till trial to find out all the facts so your babble is useless.  You and others are biased against the casinos for obvious reasons not to mention "weak minded" for taking a few articles as containing all the facts.  No wonder direct marketing works.

Now im going to the pool today to talk to some bikini's and you make sure to watch harry potter for the 1000th time with the rest of the boys ok.

 Sad. Why you feel the need to make such inflamatory, annoying, hateful and defamatory posts is beyond me. Have fun "talking to bikini's" by the pool. But I would advise you that the girls seeing you do that might think you're a psycho, talking to an article of clothing rather than to a person. 

The thread reads " Alleges"- meaning the Casino assumes thst Ivey got away with their money " this way".
What l find curious is the fact that casino's are crawling with security cameras, why is it then that when  Ivey continued winning they did they not " suspect" that something was going on?
Was it a case that the guy is a "World Champion in Poker"-his just got himself a hot hand today so let him play till he burns himself out, he eventually will empty his pockets back into our casino?
The casino also alleges that Ivey " exploited" the defect in the cards as well, was Ivey supposed to tell the dealer " you have defect cards here bud, l wanna beat you guys fair & square? "

Right.

The technique gave him an unfair advantage on four occasions between April and October 2012, the casino asserted in its lawsuit.

So one of the top gamblers in the world comes into your house and walks away with a few million profit 4 times in a row on a game and nobody takes notice? Well, I guess on the last time they did take notice, but it was too little too late.

The milk has already been spilt. The horse has left the barn. Sorry.

This raises another question JD- did the house have " defective cards" on hand for  each and every occasion that Ivey showed up to play? That is a stretch, unless an entire batch of defective cards were bought and stored on property for a considerable amount of time with Ivey knowing about it.....another stretch of the imagination!

The Casino would also be " alleging" that Ivey won by exploiting defective cards- which they supplied.

Any recent word on them destroying their existing stock of faulty cards? 

Todd,

Yes those sentences were in the news story but as I'm sure you're very well aware a lot of people just read headers ot thread titles and go no further yet spout their opinions.

Also from the story:

The lawsuit claims that Ivey and his companion instructed a dealer to flip cards in particular ways, depending on whether it was a desirable card in baccarat. The numbers 6, 7, 8 and 9 are considered good cards. Other "bad" cards would be flipped in different directions, so that after several hands of cards, the "good" ones were arranged in a certain manner — with the irregular side of the card facing in a specific direction — that Ivey could spot when they came out of the dealer chute.

The suit claims Ivey wanted the cards shuffled by an automatic shuffling machine, which would not alter the way each card was aligned.

OK, players instructing a dealer just doesn't happen - way too much chance for collusion. Dealers have been fired for a lot less.

Pit: Who you working for dealer, me or this guy? Who issues your paycheck, this guy or the joint?

_________________________________________________________

Everyone,

Seems to be a lof of anti-casino animosity here. We don't have the whole story yet and it could go either way - maybe an out of court partial settlement or maybe a little bit of heat to convonce the player once he's put in the blackbbok he can't play anywhere, or maybe poker only (player against player).

Also sounds like some of the people demanding "Let him keep the money" are some of the same people that were saying, "Pay the lady" in the article about the woman at the slot machine who never even played a coin.

They weren't necessarily "defective" cards, but had asymmetrical design "features" based on manufacturing variances. Apparently, this is not uncommon and cards like this are in wide use in casinos. Phil also cleverly requested specific decks of Gemaco purple cards, perhaps knowing those had more likelihood of the "feature" or maybe just to sell the superstitious line.

And the player advantage wouldn't have happened if the cards weren't selectively rotated (by the dealer) anyway, that was the key. And even in other games where players handle the cards and flip them themselves, this advantage is nullified if the dealer takes half the cards and rotates 180 prior to the shuffle.

So it's a casino procedural flaw more than anything.

Don't count me in with that. I don't remember even commenting on that slot machine story, that is silly, just a machine malfunction. Can't expect payout from that.

This story is advantage play like card counting, which casinos have *tried* to sue players in the past, and failed. But this case is borderline with some other elements, so time will tell. From looking at the details provided so far, does not appear to be cheating per se.

And remember, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law! 

The Post says...

"The suit claims the cards, manufactured by Gemaco Inc., and used in the baccarat games were defective in that the pattern on the back of them was not uniform. The cards have rows of small white circles designed to look like the tops of cut diamonds, but the Borgata claims some of them were only a half diamond or a quarter of one."

 Just quoting from the source Ol Chap..

Yeah, I know. But remember that's the lawyer for the plaintiff/casino using that word in the lawsuit for dramatic effect, get it? 

This will be an interesting court battle, can't wait to see it.

"From looking at the details provided so far, does not appear to be cheating per se."

It was more like a sting and easy to do because beginning in 2008, the AC casinos wanted any high roller action and to get it, changed some of the playing rules at the player's request. Don Johnson won over $5 million playing blackjack at Borgata after negotiating what appeared to be minor changes in the rules that actually gave him a mathematical edge.

The design on the back of the cards along with dealing the cards face down created a slight advantage that Ivey and Cheng Yin Sun exploited. From what I've read, the key was asking for a Chinese speaking dealer, Ivey and Cheng were out $800,000, and Cheng asked for the cards to be dealt face down saying she was superstitious. The casino allowed the request and Ivey and Cheng began edge sorting the cards.

It looks like the Borgata is saying they gave Ivey and Cheng the OK to cheat but didn't think they would do it?

The dealing of cards face down is normal in baccarat. The key was interrupting the dealer's normal rigid flow of card handling to achieve desired edge sorting result.

I like playing baccarat, but I find the tradition of "peeking" at the cards to be so silly. Especially among asian players, where tradition and superstition are very important, baccarat is extremely popular. What they do is "squeeze" and bend up the edges of the cards to take a peek at it very slowly from all 4 sides to build the suspense. Again, I find this TOTALLY SILLY, as nothing you do is going to change the card's value once dealt. But I admit, I will do it too (when in Rome...) if there are lots of players around squeezing it, expecting you to do the same. It's all good. 

So in this case and others, players aren't allowed to touch/handle cards. I've played in both kinds of games. So they ask the dealer to slowly reveal the card. This is not unusual. One report did indicate this, that they wanted the dealer to lift the side of the card so Phil could peek at it.

Now I'm assuming that if it had the desired value and the undesired orientation, he had the dealer continue to flip it. This is F'ing genius! The dealer just thinks she's doing normal suspense building and will comply, because it has no effect on the outcome of the play. Why not? But in the process, the normal flow of card handling is interrupted, and some cards get automagically re-oriented 180 degrees. And Phil never even touched the cards! Wow.

Foxwoods casino accused me of cheating when i won a million playing Rock-paper-scissors. They tried to arrest me, but i hid over in the penny slots with the ladies.

I thought that all slot machines were expensive.

Gambling and cheating do not mix.