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

#171

Post by jly » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 7:07 PM UTC

pinkrooftop wrote: post #136

mcherm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah, 100x odds is a great marketing move but it isn't that helpful to the average gambler. A game of heads or tails with a fair coin would be the best EV bet in the casino, but it isn't that useful if I need to place a minimum $1000 bet per flip.

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

#172

Post by elastic_church » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 7:18 PM UTC

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…

so the casino always uses these cards. Sun bought a set of the cards from that casino and studied them. Sun was also not a player, she was just the interpreter while Ivey was the better.

if the rationale of this case stands, then every past player at Borgata and the Attorney General and dealers should sue Borgata under the New Jersey Casino Control Act

If that fails then the New Jersey Casino Control Act should be challenged on constitutional grounds of unequal application of the law

Would love to see this case moved to federal jurisdiction, no federal judge is going to take a favorable view of New Jersey State's enshrinement of casino superiority.

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

#173

Post by evgen » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 7:38 PM UTC

asher_ wrote: post #32

gizmo686 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I mentioned in another reply, the particular clause referenced above is not what was used. However, your interpretation that the game was "invalidated" is correct. This is not exploitable because it is within the casinos power to not use marked cards. Further, if the casino did use marked cards, and the player won; then the casino could invoke the same law and invalidate the winning. This is essentially what happe…

I don't understand how it's not exploitable. The casino can't control whether cards get marked. They get marked all the time during regular gameplay.

If the cards are damaged or marked during play the deck is punched and disposed of. After a certain small number of uses, where normal card handling by dealer or players might mark there cards, there deck is punched and disposed of. I would be surprised if a big Vegas casino does not go through a shipping container of card decks every night.

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

#174

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 7:38 PM UTC

asher_ wrote: post #32

gizmo686 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I mentioned in another reply, the particular clause referenced above is not what was used. However, your interpretation that the game was "invalidated" is correct. This is not exploitable because it is within the casinos power to not use marked cards. Further, if the casino did use marked cards, and the player won; then the casino could invoke the same law and invalidate the winning. This is essentially what happe…

I don't understand how it's not exploitable. The casino can't control whether cards get marked. They get marked all the time during regular gameplay.

[deleted]

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

#175

Post by blhack » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 7:43 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #84

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…

Ah, I am not a gambler, so I'll definitely admit some ignorance on this.

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

#176

Post by grzm » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 7:45 PM UTC

evgen wrote: post #173

asher_ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how it's not exploitable. The casino can't control whether cards get marked. They get marked all the time during regular gameplay.

If the cards are damaged or marked during play the deck is punched and disposed of. After a certain small number of uses, where normal card handling by dealer or players might mark there cards, there deck is punched and disposed of. I would be surprised if a big Vegas casino does not go through a shipping container of card decks every night.

Shipping containers are pretty big compared to a deck of cards, even a 20-footer. Looks like an average casino goes through on the order of 1,000 decks of cards a night.

https://www.quora.com/How-many-new-decks-of-playing-cards-do...

A thousand decks is about 4 cubic feet, if my math holds up. A 20' container is about 1360 cubic feet.

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

#177

Post by n0b0dythere » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 7:48 PM UTC

gtlondon wrote: post #62

Interesting case. The real question for me is: Why does a Casino use card patterns that are not symmetrical? Considering how much resource is invested to make sure everything else is as precise as possible, this seems suspicious / unusual.

He was a high roller, casinos give them special treatment.

He specifically asked for this brand of cards to be used, a private game, etc. Apparently there is some superstition with gambling, so they didn't find that odd or out of place or anything.

I am curious how a non symmetrical playing card was available at the casino though. You'd think someone would make a casino an OCR app that quickly scans card backs to look for any asymmetrical issues and mark them as 'do not use'.

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

#178

Post by EdHominem » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 7:59 PM UTC

Steeeve wrote: post #114

gremlinsinc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wouldn't that same law then negate any and ALL winnings the casino has ever had from Baccarat, because anyone who has ever lost could come forward and counter sue them for breach of the same contract and there'd be no way to prove one way or the other, they'd have to nullify out all past/present games. I think it's best not to set a legal precedent, and for the casino to take their hit, and tighten up security of the…

It would negate winnings from games using those specific cards where some of the cards were specifically rotated.

Right, but the casino has a great opportunity to rotate the cards in every game. Can you definitively state that the dealer never rotated one of your face-up cards after a hand?

We only have their word that they didn't know the deck was marked. They could have been cooperating in fraud for years. Let certain players win, especially against a troublesome high-roller. Save it to invalidate a huge win, etc.

It's improbable that their anti-fraud team didn't catch the issue because it's so obvious. Do a manual shuffle and fan the cards. 1/32nd of 2.5 inches is 1/80th of the width. Greater than 1%. I used to manually grade gems. In the beginning I could hardly tell 3mm from 4mm, in the end I could spot a 3.05 in a tray of 3s, and gems don't sit flush in your hand while you compare them. (At any rate, they will check after this, and mechanically I hope!)

The best way to deal with this is make the casino eat the loss. If they're innocent it'll teach them to be more careful.

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

#179

Post by EdHominem » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 8:12 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #167

EdHominem wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but it's not dependent on intent. The other casino didn't intend to leave the deck unshuffled, this casino didn't intend to buy marked cards. But, they did. So the games played with those cards(/unshuffled decks) shouldn't count. If the law doesn't function in both directions it isn't law, it's codified graft.

> Right, but it's not dependent on intent. But it does appear to be dependent on knowledge , as per the law quoted in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227445 Ivey and Sun knew how to read the marked cards.

If I was caught carrying marked cards nobody would believe I didn't know. The casino has an entire anti-fraud department which exists to catch this sort of thing and we're supposed to believe they didn't notice this for years...

But that's only half the post you linked to... Importantly, the precedent involving the unshuffled deck didn't involve knowledge. Despite everyone's intentions the game was not setup correctly so it didn't count.

If so, then these games (all games with these decks) were also not setup correctly. Either all games with these cards are improper or none are.

And importantly, nothing other than penalizing the casino will change anything. This ruling incentivizes them to leave marks in their cards, dice, etc, and call them out in the future to invalidate any unpleasant results.

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

#180

Post by EdHominem » Wed, Dec 21, 2016, 8:25 PM UTC

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #133

imagist wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The laws exist to remove legal culpability. It's not throwing our hands up, it's recognizing the source of the problem.

Until we fix the laws, the entire point of a corporation is to diffuse legal responsibility.

Yes, it needs to change, but it can't change from the ignorant position that we're fixing leaks and will eventually have a waterproof system. It's intentionally setup to be this way and nothing short of an entire overhauling will fix it.