Phil Ivey Countersues Atlantic City’s Borgata Casino

As well as being one of the best poker players on the planet, Phil Ivey is a high-stakes gambler who has wagered millions of dollars playing casino card games and craps over the years. In 2012, the 10-times WSOP bracelet winner subsequently won around $9.6 million playing Baccarat at the Borgata Casino in New Jersey, but since then Crockfords London casino has successfully sued the 39 year-old pro for ‘edge sorting’ and managed to reclaim the £7.8 million ($12.4m) he won while in the UK.
Learning of the case, the Borgata Casino then followed suit and Ivey is now due to appear in a US court later on this year, and stands to lose not just the money he won, but could also face between 5 and 10 years behind bars if found guilty. In the meantime, Ivey has maintained his innocence throughout the whole affair, claiming that ‘edge-sorting’ did not amount to cheating, and that it was the casino which ultimately failed to protect itself from a player of his ability.
This week, Ivey then filed a countersuit to the lawsuit, with his lawyer questioning the validity of a case in which one vital piece of evidence was now missing, namely the precise playing cards used by Phil Ivey and his co-defendant Cheng Yin Sun during their Baccarat sessions. As the countersuit states:
“Plaintiff Borgata knew that those playing cards were critically material to Ivey and Sun’s defense, and knew further that destruction of those playing cards would render the defendants irrevocably prejudice in defending against plaintiff’s claims and in securing judgment against the plaintiff.”
Together with other quirks of the case, Ivey is hoping that this time around the court will decide in his favor, an assumption which received a positive boost after Lord Justice Kim Lewison granted him an appeal in December, stating that Ivey’s case “raises an important question [of law] and have a real prospect of success.”