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

#131

Post by cr0sh » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 4:33 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…

Actually, it sounds like he got greedy when he later tried it at a London casino after; they found out, and kicked him out and sued him - and won: That tipped off the Borgata casino. Had he not done that (ie - went to London to pull off the same), the Borgata would likely would never have known.

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

#132

Post by imagist » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 4:36 PM UTC

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #99

imagist wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations are by nature amoral, only caring about money.

I disagree. That's only really a modern American take on corporations, and even then, you have things like social purpose corporations.

The modern American take on a corporation is the existent majority of successful corporations. That's certainly how casinos operate.

I'm not saying this is the kind of corporation I want--on the contrary, I despise that such organizations are allowed to exist.

But saying that corporations shouldn't act immorally when they can make more money by acting immorally is like saying termites shouldn't eat wood. It's the nature of corporations to seek profit at all cost and if you don't want that, you don't want a corporation, at least in the sense that corporations exist today.

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

#133

Post by SomeStupidPoint » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 4:41 PM UTC

imagist wrote: post #132

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. That's only really a modern American take on corporations, and even then, you have things like social purpose corporations.

The modern American take on a corporation is the existent majority of successful corporations. That's certainly how casinos operate. I'm not saying this is the kind of corporation I want--on the contrary, I despise that such organizations are allowed to exist. But saying that corporations shouldn't act immorally when they can make more money by acting immorally is like saying termites shouldn't eat wood. It's the nat…

Again, I disagree.

That's not how the majority of corporations exist today, nor reflects how most people believe they should operate. It's the behavior of a small percentage of large corporations, largely supported by people like you throwing their hands up and going "well, that's just the way of it!"

Expecting corporations to behave ethically is no different than expecting people to behave ethically -- and we should do the same thing about both situations, establish rules and police them. It's nothing at all like termites and wood: it's a voluntary choice made by people, not a biological imperative from an unthinking creature.

It's the policing that has collapsed, because people like you have bought the propaganda that we should accept and normalize such behavior from corportations.

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

#134

Post by jdmichal » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

misja111 wrote: post #31

techsupporter wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so that's even more clear than what I thought. I didn't see that citation, my apologies. In that case, I agree even more with the judge's decision: a member of the public would not expect the meaning of the cards to be able to be "divined" by another player at the table in such a manner and the casino, had it known of the flaw, would not have used the cards, and Ivey undoubtedly used the mechanism to alter the re…

2) is about operating or exposing a game with marked cards. So it forbids the house to use those cards, I don't read it as a criminal act for the player to play against a house which uses such cards. Also I think b. is about the house: it is about owning or using such cards. The cards where not Iphy's, the casino was the owner and the one that was using them. But apart from that, just imagine what the implications ar…

There was no criminal ruling in this case. The ruling is that the implicit contract of the game was voided, according to the Casino Control Act. Returning the funds is just unwinding the executed contract.

You'll note that there are not even any punitive penalties being applied. Only the money earned during the game is to be returned.

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

#135

Post by nikcub » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 4:46 PM UTC

ht85 wrote: post #130

The tone of most of the comments is very surprising to me. Many seem to argue that the ruling is wrong or too harsh, which I don't really see the basis of. I personally think that unskilled gambling should not be a thing, but in the current state of things I don't see how Ivey and his friend aren't committing a blatant fraud. A lot of people seem angry that the odds are always in favor of the casino, and comment in a…

> so how else would that work for the gambling industry?

It would work by denying Ivey his requests and policing your games properly, as many casinos did do. Ivey isn't exactly an unknown in gambling circles - the Bogota went in eyes open, accepted the conditions and lost.

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

#136

Post by pinkrooftop » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 4:46 PM UTC

mcherm wrote: post #57

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…

If they were smart grown-ups they would be advertising the hell out of this: there's a lot more than $10 million to be made by allowing players to believe that a sufficiently smart "system" can beat the house. A really smart marketer would realize that a court case like this gets printed up in the newspapers and shared on websites (meta!) and might intentionally try to lose the case in a spectacular fashion.

This is the idea behind 100x or 1000x odds in craps. People either won't play that high, or the other -EV play decisions outweigh even massive true odds action

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

#137

Post by jdmichal » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 4:46 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #105

csydas wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Consider a deck of cards that has a triangle printed on the back. This triangle is printed exactly the same on every card, such that they are all indistinguishable from each other.

Now rotate some of the cards 180°. Those rotated cards are now distinguishable from the other cards, because the card print is not rotational-symmetric. This rotation is what caused the cards to be marked, even though the printed pattern was exactly the same.

Typically card backs are rotational-symmetric in order to avoid this. However, it seems like this particular pattern had imperfections -- within 1/32 of an inch -- which a trained eye could recognize. (The judge even admitted this as quite a feat.)

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

#138

Post by slapshot » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #105

csydas wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> they're either marked or not

They were marked when Ivy's assistant asked to turn the 9s around 180 degrees.

The design on all the cards was identical; it's not as though face cards had a different pattern on the back. The design just happened to be very slightly asymmetric so that turning the 9 cards served to mark them.

If you were not able to turn the cards, the asymmetric back would provide no information.

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

#139

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

joshka wrote: post #70

TheGrumpyBrit wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the judgment: "The Court found that Ivey and Sun breached their contract with Borgata to play Baccarat in compliance with the CCA by violating N.J.S.A. 5:12-115(a)(2) and (b) when they knowingly engaged in a scheme to create a set of marked cards and then used those marked cards to place bets based on the markings." That's the finding I disagree with, and seems to be the point that the entire judgment rests on.…

For the most part, I agree with your reading / interpretation, but IANAL. There's a slight missing piece however. Often the regulations that cover each game in a casino state that the game is concluded at the paying of bets. In this context the "result" referred to is not the result of the cards shown or the Banker / Player result that are the two outcomes of Baccarat. It is the paying of the bets that is the result.…

[deleted]

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

#140

Post by jdmichal » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 4:54 PM UTC

TheGrumpyBrit wrote: post #59

gizmo686 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article links to the Judge's opinion [0]. The referenced section is 5:12-115(a)(2) and (b): "a. It shall be unlawful: ... (2) Knowingly to deal, conduct, carry on, operate or expose for play any game or games played with cards, dice or any mechanical device, or any combination of games or devices, which have in any manner been marked or tampered with, or placed in a condition, or operated in a manner, the result…

From the judgment: "The Court found that Ivey and Sun breached their contract with Borgata to play Baccarat in compliance with the CCA by violating N.J.S.A. 5:12-115(a)(2) and (b) when they knowingly engaged in a scheme to create a set of marked cards and then used those marked cards to place bets based on the markings." That's the finding I disagree with, and seems to be the point that the entire judgment rests on.…

Bet placement and payment are all functional parts of a casino game. You can't ignore them when reading the regulations. If Ivey placed bets differently than he otherwise would have, then the game was affected.