Phil Ivey Takes on Borgata with One More Lawsuit

Poker legend Phil Ivey is counter suing the Borgata Hotel and Casino over allegations of destroyed evidence in his ongoing case of, alleged, edge sorting.
Ivey, and a co-defendant claim that the Borgata acted illegally when it destroyed the cards that had been used in Ivey’s controversial $9 million baccarat winning streak at the AC casino.
The two men say the casino’s current lawsuit against them, a lawsuit attempting to reclaim their allegedly ill-gotten winnings, should be tossed out under New Jersey’s frivolous lawsuit statutes.
In Ivey’s view, the loss of the cards – the same cards whose flaws and imperfections he committed to memory in order to beat the casino in a $100,000 a hand game of baccarat – cripples his defense against the casino operator. (Why Ivey can’t just remember the cards is another question entirely.)
The Borgata, of course, says Ivey and company are completely in the wrong and that edge sorting is fraud, not advantage playing.
By the way, that’s the same argument Crockford’s casino in London used in their case against Ivey’s UK edge sorting drama. In that case, Ivey was forced to return more than $7 million dollars in winnings in a story that’s almost identical to this one.
Ivey’s edge sorting routine seems to revolve around spending an evening playing with a deck of cards and requesting that those same cards be used in subsequent sessions. All the while, he’s memorizing small imperfections on the cards that allow him to know exactly which cards are being dealt.
No matter who comes out on top, it’s safe to say that Phil Ivey probably won’t be welcome in the world’s baccarat rooms anymore.