Gambler won £7.8m by 'reading' the back of cards: How tiny flaw in deck design could have given poker star the upper hand

Phil Ivey is accused of 'reading' the cards in a game based purely on luck
Mr Ivey’s winnings were withheld by Mayfair casino Crockfords
He insists he did nothing illegal in a game of punto banco

PUBLISHED: 16:04 EST, 11 May 2013 | UPDATED: 10:54 EST, 12 May 2013

Top gambler: Multi-millionaire Mr Ivey, 36, has been dubbed ¿the Tiger Woods of poker¿

One of the world’s top gamblers won £7.8 million in a game of chance by ‘reading’ the backs of the cards, claim the owners of Britain’s oldest casino, who are refusing to pay out.

Phil Ivey, dubbed ‘the Tiger Woods of poker’, is understood to have exploited tiny flaws in the card design during a game of punto banco, a type of baccarat based purely on luck.

He insists he did nothing illegal, however, and is suing Mayfair club Crockfords in the High Court in what is expected to be the biggest legal battle in casino history.

The technique has echoes of Kaleidoscope, a 1966 film starring Warren Beatty as a playboy who breaks into a card manufacturer to mark the cards and then beat the bank at every European casino.

The Mail on Sunday, which revealed last October that Mr Ivey’s winnings had been withheld, understands the cards were flawed because of a mistake during the cutting process at an overseas manufacturing plant.

Crucially, it meant their geometric pattern was not symmetrical, though this would not have been noticeable to the untrained eye.

Cards should look exactly the same if turned 180 degrees. If they do not, it allows so-called advantage players to use a system known as ‘playing the turn’.

Multi-millionaire Mr Ivey, 36, was accompanied by an unidentified Chinese woman and was the only person playing against the croupier over three nights at the exclusive Mayfair club last August.

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His remarkable winning streak was witnessed by a casino inspector and ten video cameras.
Initially gambling £50,000 per hand, which can be over in less than a minute, he was later given permission by the management to increase his stake to £150,000.

It is thought his companion, who is banned from at least two casinos around the world, was also able to spot the imperfections and helped Mr Ivey place his bets. Like Mr Ivey, she lives in Las Vegas.

Along with two others, she is said to have won more than $1 million in similar fashion in the US in 2011, but the money was similarly withheld and the casino’s decision was later upheld by a gaming commission.

It is not clear if Mr Ivey and the woman heard about the rogue cards at Crockfords before arranging the punto banco game or simply noticed them while playing.

Punto banco is the sister game of chemin de fer, the high-stakes card game favoured by James Bond.

The aim is to hold cards with a count of nine or closest to nine. You bet that either the hand held by the player (punto) or banker/croupier (banco) will win and place bets on the appropriate area on the table. Tens and picture cards and multiples of ten count as zero.

Though Mr Ivey was not allowed to touch the cards at any point, he is thought to have instructed the dealer to tilt each card back to expose its value.

Break the bank: Warren Beatty in Kaleidoscope about a marked-card scam

The key cards he was looking out for were nines and eights, and possibly sevens and sixes. When these cards appeared, his companion asked for them to be rotated 180 degrees, pretending that Mr Ivey was superstitious.

As this appeared to give him no advantage, the dealer acquiesced.

The rotated cards were returned to the shoe and were easily recognised by the player as different when they were eventually re-dealt, giving him a strong edge. At first, his losses were heading towards £500,000 but he recovered, and at the end of the first night was £2.3 million up. He is also thought to have persuaded the casino not to destroy the cards at the end of each session, which is normal practice.

By ‘holding the shoe’ his rotated cards were preserved for the following day’s play.

The 184-year-old casino, the oldest private gaming club in the world, initially agreed to transfer his winnings to his bank account, but nine months on it has returned only his £1 million stake. Crockfords is owned by Genting, a Malaysian gaming corporation, which sent investigators to London to question employees and scrutinise hours of CCTV footage.

Willy Allison, a leading casino suveillance specialist, warned the gaming industry about flawed cards in November 2011.

He described their exploitation as the ‘latest scam to hit Las Vegas casinos’, adding: ‘Not every player who wins a lot of money at the casino is a cheat. You don’t have to be.

Legal battle: Crockfords casino in Mayfair is being sued by Phil Ivey after he played there for three nights last August

‘By turning an asymmetrical card 180 degrees it is possible to identify what the value of the card is before it is revealed. You simply glance at the edges on the back of the card.

‘Essentially, playing the turn has the same effect as marking the cards and gives players a huge house edge.

‘Who needs invisible ink and red-tinted sunglasses when you’ve got manufacturer-made “marked cards”.’

Mr Allison said casino card manufacturers are under pressure to produce more and more cards, mainly due to massive demand in Macau where millions are used — and destroyed at the end of each session — every day.

‘Inevitably quality control goes down because of this,’ he said last night. ‘Casino management should be vigilant when it comes to manufacturer defects and flaws.’

Mr Ivey said: ‘I was given a receipt for my winnings but Crockfords has withheld payment. I have no alternative but to take legal action.’

A spokesman for Crockfords said: ‘We shall be defending this claim vigorously.’

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Did the casino post rules that "a player may not study the back of his/her cards while playing" ?

- billhill , san francisco, United States, 13/5/2013 14:00

Click to rate Rating 23

To Jonathon Leslie in Cardiff: the article's graphic explains this. The woman was asking the casino to rotate the valuable 8s and 9s 180 degrees. They would then stand out in the deck because the backs of all the cards were slightly asymmetrical -- you can tell top from bottom.

- Claudia , Boston_MA, 13/5/2013 13:01

Click to rate Rating 2

he a good play and he win the money it not phil it the casino if there win there want the money . he a great play and he play with skill . and he know the game inside and out the casino do not want to paid because it a lot of money .

- John Cataloni , ca, United States, 13/5/2013 11:49

Click to rate Rating 1

Don't see what the casino's problem is. At the end of the day it wasn't like it was his own deck of cards that they played with.

- MARK , BELFAST, 13/5/2013 10:45

Click to rate Rating 17

Tough. If Ivey did win due to a "design flaw," that's on the casino, not the gambler. Really, how pathetic is this entire story? "Our cards were flawed, the gambler figured it out, but he doesn't get his winnings." Crockfords just became the last place any high stakes gambler in the world would ever gamble. Pa-the-tic.

- westcoastbuckeye , North Hollywood, United States, 13/5/2013 09:59

Click to rate Rating 19

give the dude his money ,its not his fault that he was smarter than the casino. what is wrong with casinos,so quick at taking the money but find it hard to pay out. epepe,kampala Ug.

- mugangan , kampala, Uganda, 13/5/2013 06:44

Click to rate Rating 17

Uh, who brought the "marked" cards to the table?

- Main1two , Annapolis, United States, 13/5/2013 06:43

Click to rate Rating 20

Casino's cards, the casino agreed to up the limit, and the dealer turned the cards when asked. The casino could have not turned the cards, refused to bet at any time and could have switched to different decks. This guy deserves the money. He was smarter, faster, and knew the game better than the house. HOUSE LOOSES. He did not cheat.

- David25 , USA...mostly, 13/5/2013 06:03

Click to rate Rating 20

Gambling is about having fun, not making a profit! We all enjoy a flutter! He had an enjoyable evening, why spoil it for all by insisting on this huge pay out? - Colonelmustard, Poole, United Kingdom -- You mean gambling is not about the money? Which casino do you own?

- JustAGuy , Hampton, United States, 13/5/2013 02:46

Click to rate Rating 13

It was THEIR gambling house!! Who chose the decks of cards? He didn't bring his own. If the house foolishly buys decks of cards with the backs easily read, then they are simply inept, and that's hardly his fault. Is he obligated to tell them that they need to step up their game? If they have gamblers in their dens that behave foolishly, do they return money. I doubt that very much. Personally I don't gamble because I find it a fools game. I have no desire to take another man's money and an even lesser desire to give him mine. But in this instance, the gambling hall isn't even claiming that he used undue influence or special tactics to win, just that he understood the game as it was being played better than they did. If a person or institution strikes up a game, provides the tools for that game, and institutes themselves as proctor of that game, I can hardly see how they can complain when someone using their own wits beats them at their game, as it is being played. That's ridiculous.

- Resident , somewhere in America, 13/5/2013 02:26

Click to rate Rating 18

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