Phil Ivey Appeals to UK Court Over Cheating Claims
Professional poker star Phil Ivey has requested that a London court of appeals make a decision on the cheating scandal which rocked his career several years ago. He has asked the court to state when playing cards tactically officially crosses the line into cheating.
40 year old poker pro Phil Ivey was apprehended at the Crockfords casino in London in 2012 whilst playing Punto Banco, a form of Baccarat. A 2014 ruling stated that he cheated to win £7.8 million ($11 million) at the casino. Ivey admitted to employing a card technique called “edge sorting,” which involves arranging cards to take advantage of design differences or flaws to give the player an increased knowledge of high and low-value cards. In his defence, Ivey claims it was a fully legitimate way of gaining a slim advantage over the casino.
The verdict was declared very “unusual” by Phil Ivey’s defence attorney, Richard Spearman, who questioned the 2014 ruling. Spearman said Ivey didn’t act dishonestly and the judge found him to be truthful. Spearman admits that “there are a lot of games in which deception, certainly in the sense of bluffing, is integral to the game”.
The poker star is a 10-time winner of the highly coveted World Series of Poker gold bracelet and career winnings of more than $20 million. His attempts to recoup the money he won at the Genting casino has taken him almost six years. Crockfords are still withholding the sum.
The London appeals court will have to decide what exactly the legal definition of cheating is and what it constitutes in terms of Baccarat and other casino games. A lawyer for Genting Casino said in court that “it is not a game of skill, it is not a game of mixed skill and chance. You are not supposed to know what is coming out of the shoe. Those are the rules.” Genting has denied any prior knowledge of what “edge sorting” was, and if it had known it would’ve taken more steps to protect itself from cheating.
