Phil Ivey calls himself the Tiger Woods of gambling. The casinos are saying the same thing, only from Tiger’s ex-wife’s perspective. The Borgata Hotel and Spa claims Phillip Ivey Jr cheated them for almost ten million dollars. The hotel claims Ivey and a group of associates used a technique called edge sorting to win. Edge sorting is a way of exploiting anomalies in the cards design to determine good cards from bad ones. The hotel claims the technique gives the group such an advantage that it passes the threshold of cheating. The federal lawsuit also alleges that the Kansas City card manufacturer is responsible for the defect that Ivey exploited and is named in the suit. The Golden Nugget is also suing Gemaco. The Golden Nugget claims the defects caused them to lose 1.5 million to Ivey and associates. The Borgata also claims that Ivey had the dealer involved. It says the dealer was instructed to lay good card in one direction and the bad ones in another. They say Ivey insisted on an automatic shuffler so his plans would not be compromised by hand dealing.
Ivey, who won nine World Series of Poker tournaments, appears to have taken edge sorting on world tour. A major Malaysian casino operator filed suit in Britain’s High Court. The High Court is America’s federal court equivalent. This casino claims that Ivey beat them for twelve million. They say that Ivey is so good at edge sorting that he can do it with a simple glance. The Crockfords casino in London agrees. They say Ivey won almost eight million euros from their company. These cases are extremely complicated and casinos do not have a wealth of sympathizers. The casinos are always looking out for advantage players. Advantage playing is defined as a gambler that looks for legal means to gain an advantage.
Ivey is very open that he is an advantage player. Ivey claims that these are the same tactics casinos use. He says he is not the only edge sorter in gambling and the casinos know. Ivey claims that it is the casino’s responsibility to stop it. He admits to being a master sorter and is actively fighting the suits. At Ivey’s website, Iveypoker.com, he has multiple pages that are dedicated to improving poker players game by looking for advantages. These, he feels, make better players than older models .His site provides detailed charts that show how to win at poker online. The charts even provides buy in numbers. Ivey feels these suits are a matter of philosophy and he is gambling big that he is right.