Why Is Phil Ivey In Crockfords Casino's Bad Books?

The biggest gambling story of this week concerns poker’s number one pro Phil Ivey and Britain’s oldest casino Crockfords in Mayfair, London.
Around two months ago, 8 times WSOP bracelet winner Ivey was playing Punto Banco at the exclusive private casino and was down £500k at the game before his fortunes turned around and he won £7.3 million. However, the high rollers’ winning ways haven’t gone down at all well at Crockfords who, despite so far offering no evidence of wrong doing, have returned only the American pro’s £1 million deposit.
Following the resulting acrimony, the case is likely heading to the High Court and in the absence of further details, speculation is currently running rife as to why Crockfords would take such an unprecedented step to tarnish its own reputation by not paying out one of its high-rolling customers.
Theories include the casino harboring suspicions Ivey may have been card counting in order to reduce the casino’s edge, although given the unskilled nature of Punto Banco this seems an extremely unlikely possibility. Another is that the casino is simply making sure everything was above board before handing over such a large sum of cash.
However, an intriguing possibility why Crockfords might be willing to damage its reputation by being slow to pay up has been suggested by Editor in Chief of BLUFF Magazine Lance Bradley, who said:
“There’s nothing in his past that would hint at his being a cheater or unethical in any way..Casinos love high-rollers. But not high-rollers who win. Maybe they think that if they make it less enjoyable for Phil, maybe he won’t come back. Essentially, they’re firing their customer.”
Stories of high rollers banned from casinos after winning huge amounts are not difficult to find and last year a blackjack pro called Don Johnson found himself banned from nearly all the casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas after winning $15 million over a six month period, despite remaining adamant he did not employ any underhand tactics to cheat the system.
As Phil Ivey’s case is set to continue, it would be a shame to eventually discover that Crockfords reason for non-payment is that they are simply bad losers.