For several weeks in 2012, world-famous poker star Phil Ivey visited the Borgata Casino in New Jersey with a female friend named Cheung Yin Sun. He was a regular at the establishment, but oddly, he would attend the casino to play a game other than poker.
The thing is, Ivey’s friend, Cheung, was an expert in observing baccarat cards to find flaws that would help identify a specific card from a deck.
Next, she would notify Phil what card it was, and the self-proclaimed Michael Jordan of Poker would make a move accordingly. Over several weeks, Phil and Cheung made $9.6 million from Borgata Casino, including $4.8M within 17 hours.
Ivey also won an extra $500,000 playing Craps with some of the money he won playing Baccarat. Ultimately, Borgata Casino finally caught up with Phil, and they sued him, his friend, and the company that made the doomed Baccarat cards.
The Court Ruling
In 2014, Borgata Casino went to court, hoping they would convince a judge to force Ivey to refund the entire $10.1 million he won two years prior. While making a verdict in 2016, the judge assigned to the case listened to the house and gave Phil the chance to prove his innocence.
Ivey argued that the trick he used to beat the Borgata Casino—Edge sorting—wasn’t illegal, and therefore he had won fairly. And sure enough, the court concurred that edge-sorting wasn’t unlawful.
However, as Zara Harris has reported, the judge deemed Ivey’s actions a violation of the New Jersey Casino Control Act. So, he was to pay back $10.1M to Borgata Casino. But there was one problem. The ten-time WSOP Bracelet champion had no assets in New Jersey. And that meant there was no money to collect.
Phil wasn’t broke, though. At the time, he had won over $25 million in poker tournaments and millions in online competitions. But knowing trouble was looming in Jersey; the now 42-year-old transferred all his assets to Nevada.
Settling the Debt
After years of court battles without receiving money from Ivey, a judge granted the Borgata Casino permission to claim Ivey’s assets in Nevada. Predictably, Ivey appealed the decision, but the court ruled in the casino’s favor February last year.
Last Summer, the Borgata Casino got the opportunity to claim some of Ivey’s assets at the World Series of Poker Event in Nevada. It was the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, and Ivey was one of the favorites to win.
He finished eighth and cashed out $124,410. He also won some extra $9,000, but he never received any of that money. Instead, Borgata Casino, through their lawyers, seized it all. Or did they?
You see, it wasn’t just Borgata Casino interested in the money. Poker players Illya Trincher and Jungleman Cates (both nicknames) had deals to get cuts from Ivey if he won money from the tournament.
As a result, they filed a petition to stop the transfer of Ivey’s wins from Caesars Casino to Borgata Casino. This didn’t stop the “MJ of poker” from playing his favorite game, though.
In October, Ivey traveled to the Czech Republic to participate at the WSOP Europe to win the €100,000 Diamond High Roller. He finished eighth (again) and cashed out €212,504. He also won an extra €72,000 at the event. It’s not clear whether Borgata claimed the money.
Sealing a Deal and Finalizing the Ordeal
Months after Borgata Casino claimed his $133,398 wins at Caesars Casino, Phil Ivey finally struck a deal to pay an undisclosed amount to the casino November last year.
The agreement was finalized this July. However, it required the Jersey court that oversaw the case to restructure its ruling so that the poker player would not need to pay the full amount.
The Case against Cheung and the Card Company
To expound more, Borgata Casino was primarily interested in the player, therefore, freeing Cheung. However, they hoped to get some money from Gemaco, the Baccarat card company that made faulty cards.
The plan didn’t work. In fact, it resulted in a hilarious court episode where Gemaco’s lawyers argued that the most money Borgata Casino could get was $27—the cost of a deck of Baccarat cards.
Ivey’s London Other Edge Sorting Problem
A few months before Ivey made $10.1M in New Jersey; he had won $10.2M playing Baccarat at a London-based casino. He had deployed the same tricks handed to him by Cheung—edge sorting.
Unlike New Jersey, though, Ivey didn’t leave London with his money. Instead, he was challenged to a court battle that ended at the UK’s Supreme Court—and guessed what? A five-person panel ruled in favor of the casino.
Why Baccarat?
Baccarat is the most popular casino game in the world. It’s also a game of luck with three types of bets: banked, player, and tie. But why would Ivey choose a game of chance when he’s dominant in a skill-based game, Texas Hold’em?
He had a Baccarat cheating expert in Cheung Yin Sun. She’s so good at finding flawed cards that she’s made millions of dollars “defrauding” casinos worldwide. Thanks to her unique skills, she helped Ivey win but not keep $20.3M in the same year.
Thanks to these same skills, Sun will be the inspiration behind a Hollywood film titled the Baccarat Queen. Get this; it will be produced by the makers of Crazy Rich Asians and, in conjunction with Michael Kaplan, a poker journalist who wrote a viral article about Sun in 2017.
A Happy Ending
That’s it—a seemingly never-ending court battle is finally over. The Plaintiff, Borgata Casino, can finally reclaim some of the money it lost to Ivey. The defendant, Ivey, can now play poker without fearing someone will claim his entire winnings.
Sun, a participant in the case, went from an unknown partner in crime to the inspiration behind a Hollywood movie. Gemaco can also rest assured it won’t have to be linked in helping someone cheat at a casino. If that isn’t that a happy ending, what is?