Atlantic City’s Borgata casino and card maker Gemaco have been in a side battle stemming from the lawsuit filed by the casino seeking to recoup .6 million the casino lost in an edge sorting scandal involving poker pro Phil Ivey.
In 2012, Ivey and a partner won the money playing baccarat at the casino/ Ivey allegedly exploited a weakness in the cards—manufactured by Gemaco—to gain an advantage in the game.
The Borgata has filed a suit to recoup the losses against Ivey which also names Gemaco in the suit.
Gemaco, however, has asked for its portion of the suit to be dismissed. Gemaco claims that the Borgata significantly altered the rules of their own casino game to accommodate Ivey and allowed for the minute variations in the cards to be exploited in a way that neither Gemaco nor the Borgata intended, according to a report in Flushdraw.
That defense is much like Ivey’s, who said Borgata accommodated requests to position cards in a way he could read the defect in the cards that allowed him to anticipate cards coming out of a shoe. Ivey has argued that it was the responsibility of the casino to notice the defect in the cards and his simply being aware of it and using it to his advantage is not cheating.
Borgata has filed its own brief strongly criticizing the Gemaco brief and saying it is filled with factual inaccuracies.
Borgata claims that by allegedly providing a faulty product, Gemaco violated the terms of New Jersey’s Casino Control Act, which is designed to oversee all gaming-related activity. Gemaco’s response agreed that state regulators have jurisdiction, but notes that New Jersey has not filed any action in the case or pressed any charges, Flushdraw reported.
It should ne noted that Borgata has admitted that the cards in question were destroyed during “normal course of business.”
No ruling on the motions was announced.
In the UK, Ivey had his day court regarding Crockfords’ 2012 denial of £7.8m Ivey won playing Baccarat.
Crockfords accused Ivey of cheating, saying he could read the backs of the cards used in the game. Ivey says the cards had a defect that he noticed, and he did not cheat.
Ivey sued to get his money, but a UK High Court in 2014 ruled in favor of Genting Casinos, which operates Crockfords. Genting said Ivey cheated by reading the backs of cards.
The appellate court’s Lord Justice Lewison granted Ivey’s appeal hearing, saying he raised important legal questions and has a potential for succeeding on his claims.
Ivey says he isn’t a cheater, the lower court judge he agreed Ivey didn’t think he was cheating, but still ruled against him, resulting in his appeal.
Ivey, 40, is the youngest player ever to win a world poker title.
