Phil Ivey Loses Crockford's Court Battle and $7.7 million

High Court Judge John Mitting recently ruled in favour of Crockford's Casino, meaning Phil Ivey was not awarded the $7.7 million in Punto Banco (a form of Baccarat) winnings he took the casino to court over.

Back in 2012 Phil Ivey and his female companion Cheung Yin Sun practiced "edge sorting" at Crockford's Casino, London. Noticing that the cards had an asymmetrical pattern, and convincing the unwitting dealer to turn the cards the other way for reasons of "suspicion", Ivey was able to identify higher cards from the reverse.

Although the judge ruled this was technically cheating according to civil law, Victoria Coren argued in her Guardian piece that

"He didn’t smuggle in a set of loaded dice or x-ray specs; he didn’t mark the cards with his fingernails or bribe the staff. He just spotted something about the deck they didn’t spot. He exploited their readiness to give him special treatment because they anticipated fat losses. I believe the casino should have ground its teeth, tipped its hat, paid £7.7m for the lesson and stopped using asymmetrical cards."
Unfortunately for Ivey, it wasn't fellow poker pro Vicky Coren presiding over the case. Obviously disappointed, Phil Ivey has issued the following comment through a spokesperson:

"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."
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.