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Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

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Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#81

Post by emodendroket »

TheGrumpyBrit wrote: post #71
alasdair_ wrote: post #6

"Ivey and Sun adjusted the odds of Baccarat in their favor. This is in complete contravention of the fundamental purpose of legalized gambling" Note that, according to the judge, the "fundamental purpose of legalized gambling" is for the house to always win.

The actual quote from the judgment is "allowing a player to unilaterally adjust the odds of a casino game in his favor – to any degree - would violate the essential purpose of legalized gambling." - which presumably refers to N.J.S.A 5:12-1(4) [1], which says that legalized gambling is a "tool of urban redevelopment" to "facilitate the redevelopment of existing blighted areas and the refurbishing and expansion of exi…

I'd question whether that is actually what happens when you open casinos, but I suppose it's beside the point, legally speaking.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#82

Post by maaaats »

jlebrech wrote: post #65

you could exploit max bet if they allowed it. you start at $1 and if you lose you double your bet, and when you win you reset your bet back to $1.

This is called Martingale and doesn't work out as nicely as it first seems.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#83

Post by sleepychu »

jlebrech wrote: post #65

you could exploit max bet if they allowed it. you start at $1 and if you lose you double your bet, and when you win you reset your bet back to $1.

This works but you don't need to lose all that many hands in a row before your stake is huge compared to what you stand to recover. By the 20th hand you're over $1M for the single bet and you've invested ~$500K to get this far, all to eventually win $1 per hand if you have the bank to cover it.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#84

Post by harryh »

blhack wrote: post #61

While I initially thought that he and Sun should be able to keep their money (I assume she was paid handsomely for this?), after thinking about it more, I realize how livid I would be to find out that the casino had done this to better their own odds. I think that the situation is maybe slightly more complicated than it seems at first glance. To those who didn't read the article: the backs of the cards were not perfe…

There are no decisions the casino makes in the game of baccarat where they could gain an advantage by knowing what the face down cards are. So there is no situation in which you could be "livid" as you describe.

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm fairly certain that this is true for every casino card game. As the casino is handling the cards the games are designed such that the card handlers can gain no edge by surreptitious looking at the value of face down cards.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#85

Post by emodendroket »

arctangent wrote: post #41

Ivey recently lost an almost identical case here in the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/nov/03/poker-player-l... http://www.flushdraw.net/news/eight-surprising-details-phil-... The full legal judgment is available here, and may provide insight into why this activity was also ruled illegal in the USA: https://www.888casino.com/blog/sites/default/files/ivey_croc...

That's mentioned in the article as what tipped the casino off.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#86

Post by codedokode »

techsupporter wrote: post #9
asher_ wrote: post #3

This seems like a ruling unlikely to stand up on appeal. This technique is akin to card counting, where skill is combined with luck to create a long term advantage. I also think it should have been fairly obvious to the casino employees that some kind of advantage play was happening. Ivey is very well known as a poker player, and while he also is known as a gambler, arbitrary superstitions are outside of his characte…

> I don't know what part of the law it supposedly broke, but it seems like the judge believes that the player in the casino has a legal obligation to be a sucker. I went and had a go at the New Jersey Casino Control Act and I believe that the judge is saying that Ivey violated 5:12-114(2), which states: "It shall be unlawful for any person playing any licensed gambling game knowingly to use bogus or counterfeit chips…

I wonder if Ivey would lost the game, could he request to get his money back because the game was "unlawful"?

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#87

Post by harryh »

benmmurphy wrote: post #68

Were these cards used to run other games in the casino? Is the casino now going to take steps to refund all the players that partook in games with these marked cards?

Given that these cards could only give the player an advantage and never the house your proposal doesn't make any sense.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#88

Post by mattmaroon »

codedokode wrote: post #86
techsupporter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know what part of the law it supposedly broke, but it seems like the judge believes that the player in the casino has a legal obligation to be a sucker. I went and had a go at the New Jersey Casino Control Act and I believe that the judge is saying that Ivey violated 5:12-114(2), which states: "It shall be unlawful for any person playing any licensed gambling game knowingly to use bogus or counterfeit chips…

I wonder if Ivey would lost the game, could he request to get his money back because the game was "unlawful"?

No. The casino doesn't know the cards are "marked".

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#89

Post by harryh »

lordnacho wrote: post #80

The casino operators need to think about the law of large numbers. If you have an edge, what you want is for a bunch of little guys to bet against you. Your certainty of winning against a million little bets is enormous, if you have an edge. And you do, because those games are made that way. What you don't want to do is bet a few big bets. You might be smarter than me at guessing the outcome of an election, or a coin…

You significantly underestimate the sophistication of the casino operators. Those few huge fish aren't each making a single bet. They're making many many bets. Enough that the house edge is extremely likely to manifest itself except in cases like this one where the house edge had been manipulated.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#90

Post by randomnumber314 »

techsupporter wrote: post #9
asher_ wrote: post #3

This seems like a ruling unlikely to stand up on appeal. This technique is akin to card counting, where skill is combined with luck to create a long term advantage. I also think it should have been fairly obvious to the casino employees that some kind of advantage play was happening. Ivey is very well known as a poker player, and while he also is known as a gambler, arbitrary superstitions are outside of his characte…

> I don't know what part of the law it supposedly broke, but it seems like the judge believes that the player in the casino has a legal obligation to be a sucker. I went and had a go at the New Jersey Casino Control Act and I believe that the judge is saying that Ivey violated 5:12-114(2), which states: "It shall be unlawful for any person playing any licensed gambling game knowingly to use bogus or counterfeit chips…

In the broader scheme of things, isn't the casino setting itself up for trouble? If someone lost significant money, can't they now file suit claiming the casino likely used a similar scheme to force the game in the casino's favor?
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