The UK Supreme Court is expected to provide its ruling on the court battle between Phil Ivey and the owners of the famous London’s Crockfords Club – Genting Casinos UK. The country’s highest court is expected to finally determine whether the world-famous poker player is to get his £7.7-million winnings from the casino.
UPDATE: News have just emerged that the Supreme Court ruled against the prominent poker pro.
As reported by Casino Guardian at the beginning of March, the Supreme Court of the UK had then granted the 40-year-old poker star with a permission for a hearing of his high-stakes baccarat case. In a nutshell, the hearing mainly concerned the issue of whether the player cheated at the time he generated the afore-mentioned winnings, and if dishonesty is an integral part of the offence of cheating.
The American poker player challenged a 2016 majority decision in the Court of Appeal, under which his case against the owners of the Crockfords Club Mayfair. Ivey may have lost the legal battle before the Court of Appeal, but then, in 2017 the UK’s highest court gave him the permission to appeal the decision, with the hearing being scheduled for July 13th.
Such civil cases hearings are not so common at the UK Supreme Court. In fact, the highest court of the UK allows such hearings to be held only if the case would provoke a vast public interest due to the issues raised. More importantly, such a hearing would no longer give him the opportunity for a further appeal.
Phil Ivey’s Baccarat Case against Crockfords Casino
As mentioned above, the Court of Appeal ruled in November 2016 that Phil Ivey had used a form of “advantage play” to cheat while playing a high-stakes baccarat game of Punto Banco at the Crockfords Casino London in 2012. At that time, Ivey won a mind-blowing amount of £7.7 million, which should have been wired to him but never arrived, except for his £1-million stake which was returned to him.
Reportedly, at the time when the player and his playing partner were involved in a card game of Punto Banco, which is a variation of baccarat game, the two of them managed to spot a minor manufacturing flaw on the playing cards and used it as an advantage. Phil Ivey confessed that he had really used the so-called edge-sorting strategy, but also explained that he had never touched the cards that had flaws. Ivey further said that he had never cheated.
In fact, Ivey claimed that he did not personally touch any of that cards, but he persuaded the croupier to rotate the cards.
The owners of the Crockfords Casino London – Genting Casinos UK – refused to pay out the winnings generated by Ivey, which amounted to £7.7 million, saying that the casino was not aware that the player had used the edge-sorting strategy. Genting Casino UK further claimed that the American poker pro had used the edge-sorting method to unfairly boost the odds of the Punto Banco game in his favour.
- Author
Harry Evans
