The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal has ruled in favor of two Australian gamblers who were accused of cheating at Star Entertainment’s Star Gold Coast casino back in 2018, saying that the company had no grounds to ban the pair from its properties.
The two bettors, Nathan Anderson and Mark Grant, were accused by Star staff of cheating in various ways while playing games of Pontoon, including card counting, edge sorting, hand signaling and slouching to try and see cards as they were being dealt, which are violations of Queensland’s Casino Control Act. They were subsequently excluded from Star’s Gold Coast and Treasury Brisbane casinos.
However, the court ruled that Star had failed to prove that these alleged practices had a demonstrable effect on the integrity or outcome of the game.
Star’s main contention had to do with the issue of edge sorting, where players study the edges of the cards for imperfections, which then helps them identify cards before they are dealt. The company’s legal team referenced a famous case from 2017 between professional gambler Phil Ivey and Crockfords Casino in London in which the court ruled that Ivey had indeed gained an unfair advantage when he used edge sorting techniques to win £7.7 million playing Punto Banco card games. Another suit against Ivey by Atlantic City’s Borgata also ruled against Ivey.
The court, however, largely dismissed the idea that Grant and Anderson had gained an edge by studying edges—the judge’s decision stated that there was “not sufficient evidence to establish that Mr. Grant and Mr. Anderson knew that, probably, if you got a card with an anomaly in it, it would be a lower numbered card.”
The judge continued: “I find that there was no sound basis … to form a reasonable belief that the conduct of Mr. Grant and Mr. Anderson affected the proper conduct or integrity of gaming for the reasons submitted by Star. In addition, for the reasons given when addressing the question of dishonesty, I do not consider that there has been any lack of fairness or honesty in the conduct of Mr. Grant and Mr. Anderson which go to the question of integrity of gaming.”
