It seems that the 6-year-long legal dispute between the legendary poker player Phil Ivey and Borgata may come to an end soon. The two engaged in a legal battle over $10 million that Ivey won by playing baccarat in the casino on the East Coast.
Phil Ivey won approximately $10 million back in 2012 when he partnered with Cheung Yin “Kelly” Sun. The two of them developed a tactic which is often referred to as edge sorting. It gave them a significant advantage over the house, which resulted in huge winnings — something that Borgata officials were not aware at the time.
According to NJ Online Gambling, the two sides reached a settlement on July 2. The paper cited a filing from that date that was in the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The terms were not disclosed, as they never are in this type of deals.
After finding out about Ivey’s alleged cheating, Borgata filed a suit in 2014, which started a legal war that lasted for almost six years. Mac VerStanding stated that it was a surprise that the two sides took that long to reach an agreement.
A Short Overview of the Legal Battle
Ivey was sued in 2014, and the legal process started that year. However, the first big decision by the court took place in 2016, when they sided with Borgata on this issue. Therefore, Ivey and Sun were ordered to return the $10 million that they “stole” while playing baccarat at the casino. The case continued, and some sources even claimed that Ivey was about to lose a lot more than $10 million if his side continued to do poorly in court.
Moreover, Ivey suffered an additional punch when Borgata was allowed to seize his assets in Nevada last year. After he won money in a WSOP event $50,000 Poker Players Championship, his cash was immediately seized by Borgata.
However, it seems that Ivey wasn’t giving up and that he was making small progress after all. The appeals process actually started going in Ivey’s favor at one point.
One of the reasons is that he wasn’t technically cheating. He didn’t mark cards in the traditional sense but only remembering how edges of certain cards looked like and asked the dealer to turn the deck for “good luck,” while he, in fact, just wanted to remember every edge.
The result of the agreement between the two sides is not familiar at the moment. Nevertheless, there will be no big winners in this.
If Borgata has lost, they would have had to return $124,410 to Ivey that they seized after his Nevada cash win. However, if Borgata has won, they will not be able to seize any of Ivey’s assets, as his bank accounts in the US are all $0. In other words, Ivey has been focusing on playing poker outside of the country and all his assets are in foreign banks, out of Borgata’s reach.
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