The Legal Saga Of Phil Ivey & Borgata Finally Nearing The End

• It’s been a near $10 million question for almost a decade as to who is owed the money, Borgata, or players Phil Ivey and Cheung Yin Sun.
• A settlement has been agreed upon between the two parties with no terms being disclosed to the public at this time.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – It’s been years of legal troubles stemming back to 2012 between Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City and famed poker player Phil Ivey.

The back and forth was over the sum of almost $10 million that Ivey won at the casino through four separate visits playing mini-baccarat.

Ivey maintained that he was owed that money as he played fairly while Borgata said that Ivey cheated and they were in fact the injured party that deserved the $9,626,000 won by Ivey and his partner Cheung Yin Sun.

The Argument

According to court documents from the case, Ivey and Yin Sun were accused of “edge-sorting” during the four occasions where they played mini-baccarat.

In order for this plan to work, the duo would play in a private area and request a dealer that was fluent in Mandarin Chinese who would turn cards to 180 degrees through the direction of Yin Sun. After that, an automatic card shuffling device that was also requested by the two men would be used, allowing the cards to be stacked in the way Yin Sun set them up with his previous directions.

All of these requests made by Ivey and Sun were allowed by Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City at the time, and they were unaware that it was for anything other than playing.

It’s not unheard of for players like Ivey, who is a high roller, million-dollar winner to get his requests granted by casinos like Borgata. Ivey has won over $25 million as a career poker player.

But Borgata’s argument is flawed because the men could only engage in “edge-sorting” if the casino obliged them with their requests. “Edge-sorting” is what the casino is claiming Yin Sun and Ivey did to win so much money.

“They used a scheme called ‘edge-sorting,’ where Sun, after learning the face value of certain strategically important cards, would have the dealer turn those cards so that they could be distinguished from other cards in the deck by minute asymmetries on the repeating pattern on the backs of the cards as they were dealt,” court documents read. “Ivey and Sun would then be able to see the leading edge of the first card in the shoe before it was dealt, giving them ‘first card knowledge,’ and Ivey would bet accordingly.”

Borgata would later go after card manufacturer Gemaco claiming they made defective cards that helped cause this problem.

The cards were not flawed and legal representation from the card company said should Borgata move forward with a trial against the company, the best they could hope for is $27 in damages, being the cost of a deck of Gemaco cards.

The casino was simply grasping at straws and looking to blame someone else for this monumental mistake that could’ve been averted had they not obliged to all the requests made by Ivey and Yin Sun.

Finally, An Ending?

In 2018, a judge ruled that Borgata provided all the tools that led to Ivey and Yin Sun winning their near $10 million pot, from the private room, to the dealer, to the card shuffling machine, and the Gemaco deck of cards.

If this was in fact a scheme and the two men cheated, the casino played a very big hand in it.

Terms of the settlement between the two parties have not yet been disclosed to the public but it would seem that Borgata may take a loss from almost a decade long of fighting on the issue.

And a movie is in the works on the entire saga for viewers everywhere to see in the future and pick the side they believe is right, although it will have no effect on the outcome as that’s already been settled.