IVEY AND COMPANION ORDERED TO PAY $10.1 MILLION BACK TO BORGATA (Update)
The edge-sorting ploy that misfired.
Our readers will no doubt recall the furore back in 2012 over the use of edge-sorting tactics by poker pro Phil Ivey and his talented and observant companion Cheng Yun Lin in two seven-figure Baccarat wins at land casinos in London (Crockfords) and Atlantic City (Borgata).
The former refused to pay out after discovering the disadvantage they had suffered, setting in train legal action, whilst the latter coughed up $10 million and has been trying to get it back ever since through litigation.
That culminated last week when Judge Noel Hillman ordered Ivey and Lin to repay the Borgata $10.1 million in damages, resetting the casino's losses and making it whole again.
The judge ordered that the amount Ivey and Lin won, plus a further half-million dollars won on the crap tables with the proceeds from the Baccarat cheat, be repaid to the casino, although he did not approve a further claim for the "comped" quarter-million dollars in accommodation and hospitality Ivey and Lin had enjoyed.
Borgata originally claimed over $15 million, based on the addition of estimated losses Ivey and Lin would have sustained without the aid of the edge-sorting advantage, but the judge ruled that this was too speculative a calculation with no firm evidence supporting it.