Phil Ivey Borgata case

[Eliot]

Pretty damning comments. Some might accuse you, among other things, of being a conspiracy theorist.

It's not a conspiracy when it is your direct experience.

Four more from that department --

1) Our chairman systematically raided the raise pool each year, giving huge raises to four of his friends. By 1991, our department had four of the top five salaries in the university.

2) This same chairman had his "niece" come over from China and live in his office for about six weeks. She was calling China using the departmental phones -- when the dean cut our department's phone budget we figured it out. Turns out, the concubine was calling her parents.

3) I was on a PhD committee for a student and decided to ask the prototypical super easy question during the oral defense of her dissertation. I asked for the definition of a word on the first page of her thesis. She did not know it. Turns out, her advisor wrote her dissertation. I didn't allow her to pass and that became a huge scandal.

4) Another chairman used the travel funds (meant to help us attend conferences) to take his family on world vacations.

In 1995 I wrote a lengthy and well-researched appeal to the dean, provost and governor asking that the math department lose its PhD granting accreditation. This was co-signed by a number of my colleagues in the department. I then faced retribution directly from the department, no more raises and teaching only Freshman courses. This became a whistle blower case that eventually led to them buying out my tenure.

[Freightman]

It's not a conspiracy when it is your direct experience.

Four more from that department --

1) Our chairman systematically raided the raise pool each year, giving huge raises to four of his friends. By 1991, our department had four of the top five salaries in the university.

2) This same chairman had his "niece" come over from China and live in his office for about six weeks. She was calling China using the departmental phones -- when the dean cut our department's phone budget we figured it out. Turns out, the concubine was calling her parents.

3) I was on a PhD committee for a student and decided to ask the prototypical super easy question during the oral defense of her dissertation. I asked for the definition of a word on the first page of her thesis. She did not know it. Turns out, her advisor wrote her dissertation. I didn't allow her to pass and that became a huge scandal.

4) Another chairman used the travel funds (meant to help us attend conferences) to take his family on world vacations.

In 1995 I wrote a lengthy and well-researched appeal to the dean, provost and governor asking that the math department lose its PhD granting accreditation. This was co-signed by a number of my colleagues in the department. I then faced retribution directly from the department, no more raises and teaching only Freshman courses. This became a whistle blower case that eventually led to them buying out my tenure.

I could type (poorly) for hours detailing my hundreds of encounters with companies practicing less than sterling truth tell8ng. In my 23 years of self employment, I’ve been to court twice (my customer suing a vendor on my recommendation, the other with My customer being sued by their vendor over issues which I instigated). Truth is a powerful tool.

Though spelling wasn’t an issue with my customer suing their vendor, grammar was. Mind you, so was bribery. Those issues were sidestepped, as the issues of grammar were remarkable (about 3 or 4 words as I recall) - said grammar in a proposal totally changing the meaning of a proposal, said errors totally changing the meaning of how price was to be assessed.

As an add on, though not in the area of deficient ethics, there’s money to be made in fixing fuck ups

[21forme]

See what I started. Ask a simple question...

[ZeeBabar]

It's not a conspiracy when it is your direct experience.

Four more from that department --

1) Our chairman systematically raided the raise pool each year, giving huge raises to four of his friends. By 1991, our department had four of the top five salaries in the university.

2) This same chairman had his "niece" come over from China and live in his office for about six weeks. She was calling China using the departmental phones -- when the dean cut our department's phone budget we figured it out. Turns out, the concubine was calling her parents.

3) I was on a PhD committee for a student and decided to ask the prototypical super easy question during the oral defense of her dissertation. I asked for the definition of a word on the first page of her thesis. She did not know it. Turns out, her advisor wrote her dissertation. I didn't allow her to pass and that became a huge scandal.

4) Another chairman used the travel funds (meant to help us attend conferences) to take his family on world vacations.

In 1995 I wrote a lengthy and well-researched appeal to the dean, provost and governor asking that the math department lose its PhD granting accreditation. This was co-signed by a number of my colleagues in the department. I then faced retribution directly from the department, no more raises and teaching only Freshman courses. This became a whistle blower case that eventually led to them buying out my tenure.

I spent 37+ years working at 8 different universities in 6 states and can tell you that they, the administrative side, are as corrupt as most corrupt corporations. The issue is that most faculty and staff remain totally unaware of the corruption above as cover/deniability is carefully presented. Unfortunately, I was in denial for 30 years.

[Eliot]

I spent 37+ years working at 8 different universities in 6 states and can tell you that they, the administrative side, are as corrupt as most corrupt corporations.

Yep. In my department it was senior faculty and dept. chair who were corrupt.

That said, OP was about Phil Ivey. Any other questions I can answer about him? My experience was limited to the one trial.

I first discovered edge sorting in 2002 entirely by chance by looking at an Edgewater Casino deck. I showed the asymmetry to LV Bear with a small demonstration before we were going out for a 1CP session. We decided we had enough tools to have fun in other ways so I never developed it. But, we agreed on the spot that its potential was huge.

[davethebuilder]

The term is “civil cheating” which means, in a gaming sense, that you are not playing by the rules and are not playing in the spirit of the game. It is not enough to warrant Police intervention as ”criminal cheating” would but enough to have you marked as a cheat. If you add money into the equation then it becomes more serious as there are financial consequences for the loser. This case also saw him introduce a second language into the game which further implicated him. So all this adds up to more than out strategizing the casino.

Two points stand out in this case – why did he get so greedy? $2m - $3m would have been more than enough and he may have got away with it. But $10m? Perhaps he had lost there before? The second point is that it’s very easy to safeguard against edge sorting and for a major casino to miss this is plain incompetence. Red flags should have been flying at Crockfords long before they did.

UK Supreme Court judgement:



Timeline of events:

ENGLAND

August, 2012: Phil Ivey and Cheung Yin Sun used edge sorting to gain an advantage at Punto Banco Baccarat and won 7.8m British Pounds at Crockfords Casino in London. The casino accused him of cheating and refused to pay him any winnings but refunded the 1m British Pounds he put up as front money.

May, 2013: Phil Ivey sues Genting UK PLC, the parent company of Crockfords Casino, for his winnings.

October, 2014: High Court of Justice hears the case and Phil Ivey loses.

January, 2015: Phil Ivey is granted permission to appeal the case.

April, 2016: Court of Appeals upholds the High Court decision.

February, 2017: UK Supreme Court grants permission for an appeal.

October, 2017: UK Supreme Court upholds the Court of Appeals decision. Phil Ivey loses.

UNITED STATES

April - July, 2012: Phil Ivey and Cheung Yin Sun used edge sorting to gain an advantage at Punto Banco Baccarat and won 9.6m US Dollars at the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Casino paid the winnings.

April, 2014: Borgata Hotel and Casino sues Phil Ivey to recover the money plus additional winnings. Cheung Yin Sun and Gemaco(card manufacturer) are co-defendants.

December, 2016: Phil Ivey loses the case and is ordered to repay the Baccarat winnings.

[ummagumma]

"The term is “civil cheating” which means, in a gaming sense, that you are not playing by the rules and are not playing in the spirit of the game"

So could casinos and bookmakers be accused of 'civil cheating' by not playing in the spirit of the game and banning winning players ?

[davethebuilder]

I guess that's a fair point. I'm just saying that in the eyes of the British legal system Phil Ivey went too far with what he calls advantage play.

[tomf23]

Ivey should have enlisted the services of a proxy player. In that case he likely could have gotten under the radar.

I once saw Ivey playing 100 thousand dollars a roll at Bellagio craps. Ivey was the perfect guy to do something like this as it is. He already had the reputation for playing huge.
Some random whale isn't going to want to get involved in a scheme like this.

[Eliot]

I once saw Ivey playing 100 thousand dollars a roll at Bellagio craps. Ivey was the perfect guy to do something like this as it is. He already had the reputation for playing huge.
Some random whale isn't going to want to get involved in a scheme like this.

Phil was playing the 20% loss rebate deal he was getting from Bellagio. He played loss rebates, quick hit-and-run at craps, at casinos around the U.S. for a period of time. He made many people believe he was just having fun partying as a big-time gambler, but he was playing with a huge edge, similar to Don Johnson. I had a conversation with him about this and he told me this info directly. This might not be 100% the case, he does gamble purely for fun sometimes, but I had the impression from Phil that it was mostly one big act.

[ShipTheCookies]

I once saw Ivey playing 100 thousand dollars a roll at Bellagio craps. Ivey was the perfect guy to do something like this as it is. He already had the reputation for playing huge.
Some random whale isn't going to want to get involved in a scheme like this.

This is one reason why I think MGM owned Borgata and Ivey settled. Although he may sometimes AP them and despite his poker playing, he still is a huge degenerate gambler.

[tomf23]

Phil was playing the 20% loss rebate deal he was getting from Bellagio. He played loss rebates, quick hit-and-run at craps, at casinos around the U.S. for a period of time. He made many people believe he was just having fun partying as a big-time gambler, but he was playing with a huge edge, similar to Don Johnson. I had a conversation with him about this and he told me this info directly. This might not be 100% the case, he does gamble purely for fun sometimes, but I had the impression from Phil that it was mostly one big act.

i believe it. he has a reputation as a degenerate in the poker world but i think it's a carefully cultivated image. when i saw him doing this at the Bellagio i thought he was up to something.I mean he was printing money off of Full Tilt back then but 100k a roll still seemed very steep.When I first heard about the edge sorting thing it all made sense.

[LVBear584]

I first discovered edge sorting in 2002 entirely by chance by looking at an Edgewater Casino deck. I showed the asymmetry to LV Bear with a small demonstration before we were going out for a 1CP session. We decided we had enough tools to have fun in other ways so I never developed it. But, we agreed on the spot that its potential was huge.

Good times! Ah, to be able to turn back time...