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

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

#101

Post by at-fates-hands » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 3:12 PM UTC

Two things.

One - Ivy got greedy. Had it make it appear as though he was losing some of the games, he probably would've gotten away with it. If you lose, then win, then lose and are up at the end of the night, it's more plausible you weren't cheating. The way all of the articles I've read about it, he basically ran the table for several hours and then left.

Two - you go into any casino and use card counting techniques (like the ones the MIT team used) and within ten minutes, the pit boss will cut you off because its obvious what you're doing. This is the very same technique Ivy was using. Lowering his bets when the cards were low, then increasing his bets when the cards were favorable. I'm actually pretty shocked the casino let him play for so long when it was so obvious what was happening.

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

#102

Post by hash-set » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 3:15 PM UTC

failrate wrote: post #11

As a game designer, I find casino "games" frustrating, because they are designed to not only mitigate skill, but also luck, in favor of the house. The fact that the casinos have roped in John Law to steal back their winnings after they were taken fair and square is especially galling. If they were grown-ups, they would take their beating, ban Ivey and Sun for life, and change their processes to avoid being beaten aga…

Gambling has always been a tax for the mathematically illiterate. Casino gambling has always been a scam and this proves it--whenever someone too clever comes along, they run right to the muscle to get their money back.

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

#103

Post by SomeStupidPoint » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 3:16 PM UTC

ceejay wrote: post #73

It's beyond belief that people spend money to gamble at casinos. It's one thing to know with 100% certainty that the house has the odds in their favor. But an entirely different beast to know that AND know that if you do find ways to win the casinos will still do everything in their power to prevent you from taking home the winnings.

I play roulette as an adventure randomizer, and pay the casino a tiny sliver of the amount for making that more exciting than rolling dice in my hotel room.

Roulette is fantastic for answering questions like "Do I have a $50 meal or a $200 meal?" Simple: just place $50 on a column or dozen. Bam! Your cashflow is more or less randomly distributed instead of at a flat rate, for a 5% loss. Ignoring the casino's slight edge, you can see it's shifting money -- each of 3 days, you have $100, totalling $300; on a large number of games, you'll win 1 for every 2 you lose, so you'll have 2 days where you lose $50 and 1 day where you win $100. With the casino's edge factored in, you turn a consistent $300 in to a bursty $292.

Works for basically any time you're wanting to turn a flat, planned cashflow into a dramatic bursty cashflow.

Ed: maths is hard; fixed expected value. Accidentally applied casino's edge to total cash instead of just portion gambled.

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

#104

Post by csydas » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 3:21 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #51

bluesign wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you can prove, casino knows[1] that the cards are not symmetrical, yes. "knowingly to use or possess any marked cards"

Isn't the ruling above saying just that? Otherwise they're having their cake and eating it too. So which is it?

Well it's irrelevant in this instance since the exploit used by the gambler and the woman required the dealer to rotate and leak information about the cards. The cards themselves did not seem to be enough for the gambler Ivey to exploit the system, they needed to be rotated.

Now if any other player performed such a task, sure, they're probably able to make a case too. But not every baccarat player met the criteria in this case.

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

#105

Post by croon » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 3:24 PM UTC

csydas wrote: post #104

croon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the ruling above saying just that? Otherwise they're having their cake and eating it too. So which is it?

Well it's irrelevant in this instance since the exploit used by the gambler and the woman required the dealer to rotate and leak information about the cards. The cards themselves did not seem to be enough for the gambler Ivey to exploit the system, they needed to be rotated. Now if any other player performed such a task, sure, they're probably able to make a case too. But not every baccarat player met the criteria in…

But seeing as the cards then are identical to other cards they're using, can they still be considered marked? That's what I mean, they're either marked or not.

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

#106

Post by pvdebbe » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 3:31 PM UTC

maaaats wrote: post #82

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.

Yeah. It works if you have unlimited budget and the table has no limits either. Not very realistic situation.

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

#107

Post by pc86 » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 3:33 PM UTC

iopq wrote: post #53

shawabawa3 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the logic is that if he lost $500k they wouldn't have asked for that back

You should only keep track of the baccarat winnings/losses. If he won $9.6M in baccarat and lost $500k in craps, they should still ask for $9.6M, not $9.1M. That said, they agreed to the rules, they should eat the loss anyway. The government has no role in protecting businesses from their own stupidity.

The argument (which I don't agree with, but which has some merit) is that he and his accomplice used knowledge available only to them which constituted a fraud against the casino.

The reason I don't agree with it is that the fact that the cards were printed in a manner which made it possible to do this does not mean they defrauded the casino, it means the casino shouldn't have agreed to use those cards because their security folks should have known about this issue.

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

#108

Post by pc86 » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 3:36 PM UTC

at-fates-hands wrote: post #101

Two things. One - Ivy got greedy. Had it make it appear as though he was losing some of the games, he probably would've gotten away with it. If you lose, then win, then lose and are up at the end of the night, it's more plausible you weren't cheating. The way all of the articles I've read about it, he basically ran the table for several hours and then left. Two - you go into any casino and use card counting technique…

> I'm actually pretty shocked the casino let him play for so long when it was so obvious what was happening.

This is what surprised me as well. I can understand them accepting he's doing something and trying to figure out what it is, but to let him go for that long? Perhaps it had something to do with the private room, etc?

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

#109

Post by pc86 » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 3:39 PM UTC

jlebrech wrote: post #98

sleepychu wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

yep, that's a downside.

Yes, betting a million dollars to win $1 is what most people would call "a downside."

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

#110

Post by pc86 » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 3:40 PM UTC

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…

If it's that easy then you should be able to make quite a bit of money in that industry.