Cheat! Casino keeps poker star’s winnings

One of the world’s top poker players lost a long-running legal case dubbed ‘The Battle of the Dictionaries’ today (WED) after the Supreme Court ruled he cheated at cards to win £7.7m at a top London casino.

American Phil Ivey, 40, sued Crockfords Club in Mayfair when they refused to pay up because he used a controversial technique known as edge-sorting during a game of baccarat in 2012.

Ivey, known as the ‘Tiger Woods of Poker’, was found to have cheated in civil law in both the High Court and the Appeal Court but insisted he did not act dishonestly and was simply exploiting irregularities in the design on the back of the cards to work out which card was being dealt next.

Now the President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger, together with Lady Hale, Lord Kerr, Lord Hughes and Lord Thomas have decided unanimously that Ivey did cheat at cards.

Lord Hughes said Ivey used a ‘highly sophisticated system’ to turn a game of pure chance to his advantage.

Announcing the judgement, he added: ‘This court agrees that it was cheating.

‘The key point is that Mr Ivey did not just watch the cards with a trained eye but acted to fix the shoe (packs of cards). His appeal fails.’

Ivey did not appear in court for the judgement.

The case was dubbed ‘the battle of the dictionaries’ because Ivey relied on the Oxford English Dictionary (1989) definition of cheat (‘to deal fraudulently, practice deceit’) while Crockford’s used the more recent Concise Oxford English Dictionary definition (‘to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage’).

Lord Hughes said the court had decided that it ‘probably is not true that all cheating involves dishonesty.’

He added: ‘Cheating is a concept in gambling that has existed for hundreds of years. The expression of dishonesty wasn’t carried in law until the 1968 Theft Act. There is no reason to complicate the concept of cheating by adding a requirement of dishonesty.

‘What Mr Ivey did would probably be regarded as dishonest.’

The Supreme Court also said the test of dishonesty should be the same in both civil and criminal courts and put forward a new test to replace the ‘faulty reasoning’ in the case of Ghosh.

Lord Hughes said: ‘The test involves first deciding what the individual knew about what he was doing and then deciding whether the ordinary decent member of society would regard it as dishonest.’

Paul Willcock, President and Chief Operating Officer of Genting UK, the company which owns Crockford’s, said: “We are delighted that the High Court, the Court of Appeal and now the Supreme Court have all found in Genting’s favour, confirming that we acted fairly and properly at all times and that Mr Ivey’s conduct did indeed amount to cheating. This entirely vindicates Genting’s decision not to pay Mr Ivey, a decision that was not taken lightly.”

During the original hearing at the High Court, Ivey admitted he used the edge-sorting technique to win a total of £7.713.650.60 at the punto banco variant of baccarat over the 20 and 21 August 2012.

Ivey and his playing companion Cheung Yin Sun, known as ‘Kelly’, requested that the same ‘shoe’ of Angel Co. Ltd cards be kept in use after noticing that the design on the back was slightly asymmetrical.

They then attempted to sort the strongest cards – the seven, eight and nine – by asking the dealer to turn them around 180 degrees. The strongest cards could then be identified the next time they came into play.

Crockford’s claimed that Ivey and Sun covered up their strategy by disguising their requests as being down to superstition and referring to their ‘lucky deck’ and ‘lucky Crockford’s hat’.

An experts concluded the technique turned a one per cent advantage in favour of the casino into a 6.5 per cent advantage in favour of the player.

Ivey, who lives in Las Vegas, told the High Court edge-sorting was well known in the gambling industry and that Crockfords should have taken steps to protect itself.

He said: ‘When I walk in the doors I look at every mathematical advantage I can to win. I found something we thought would work in casinos, that we could have an advantage over the house and make money. That is why I came to Crockfords.

‘Casinos make their money by taking advantage of a lot of people so I have the right to observe and if there is something wrong with the house procedures I have the right to take advantage of that.’

Crockford’s argued that Ivey cheated because he ‘interfered’ with the card game.

Mr Justice Mitting accepted that Ivey was a truthful witness but his play amounted in law to cheating.

The Court of Appeal, by a majority of two to one, agreed that edge-sorting was cheating.

Lady Justice Arden said: ‘Mr Ivey achieved his winnings through manipulating Crockfords facilities for the game without Crockford’s knowledge.

‘His actions cannot be justified on the basis he was an advantage player.’

Lord Justice Tomlinson said: ‘In my view most right-minded people would regard what was done by Mr Ivey as cheating.

‘This was a case of physical interference with the cards brought about in a consciously deceptive manner.’

Lady Justice Sharp said that the original judge was wrong to conclude Ivey cheated, on the basis that cheating requires dishonesty.

Ivey’s barrister Richard Spearman QC argued that cheating requires dishonesty and therefore Ivey did not cheat.

After making reference to ‘the battle of the dictionaries’, Mr Spearman said: ‘We say we have won that because we have the better dictionary.’

He added: ‘There is no finding at all that Mr Ivey was dishonest in any sense. He was found to be an honest witness who didn’t believe what he was doing was dishonest.

‘He contends he is entitled to be paid his winnings because edge-sorting is a legitimate advantage play technique.’

Crockford’s argued that Ivey’s belief about his own behaviour was irrelevant and amounted to a ‘Robin Hood’ defence.

Crockford’s barrister Christopher Pymont QC said: ‘He was dishonest in the criminal sense because an ordinary and honest person would not have acted as he did given that he knew full well he was changing the way the game was played in order to gain a substantial advantage.

‘Making his own belief as to the honesty of what he was doing the sole test of honesty in the criminal sense amounts to a sort of Robin Hood defence.’

The mythical outlaw Robin Hood famously justified his activities because he robbed from the rich to give to the poor.

Written arguments on both sides considered the meaning of the word ‘cheat’, the differences between criminal and civil law and acts of parliament going back to the Gaming Act of 1664 – although that refers to ‘ill-practice’ rather than cheating.

Ivey has also been ordered to hand over the £7.68million that he won at Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City four months before visiting Crockfords using the same method.

A judge at the US District Court for the District of New Jersey ruled that the edge-sorting technique allowed Ivey to ‘violate the essential purpose of legalised gambling’.