Phil Ivey says Borgata gains Unfair Advantage through Women, Booze

It’s a well-known trick that casinos use beautiful waitresses and alcohol to lower gamblers’ inhibitions. But according to high roller Phil Ivey, the Borgata takes this practice to the extreme.

The latest report from Ivey’s $9.6 million countersuit accuses the casino of using its “Borgata Babes” along with free alcohol to distract players and beat them.

The new court filing from Ivey claims the Borgata was “plying him with free alcohol served by only the most curvaceous and voluptuous females in the industry.”

Ivey made a $1 million deposit back in 2012, which allowed him to negotiate for several specific rules that supposedly derived from “superstition.” However, what the poker pro was really trying to do was give himself a better chance of “edge sorting,” where a baccarat player looks for flawed card backs during play. Ivey believes that the Borgata knew he was an advantage player and used various techniques to try and beat him out of the $1 million deposit.

“It distracts you from your playing,” he said. “I mean, anything they can do to give themselves an advantage. Everyone knows that alcohol impairs your judgment, and they offer that, and they have the pretty cocktail waitresses and they’re all very flirty. They’re talking to you, you know. I got quite a few numbers.”

The 39-year-old went on to add that he was drunk pretty much the whole time that he was playing baccarat at the casino. However, his accomplice, Cheng Yin Sun, doesn’t drink and was able to make sober decisions for Ivey while the casino was distracting him.

Borgata’s argument hinges on Ivey using highly sophisticated advantage play that could be considered borderline cheating. Specifically, he requested a flawed Gemaco deck that enabled him to spot defective diamond patterns on the card backs. This enabled him and Sun to better predict what card values would be flipped over, especially when, by request, the dealer rotated certain cards 180 degrees.

If there’s a precedent in this case so far, it comes from Britain’s High Court, which ruled against Ivey in a similar edge-sorting case. Ivey launched a $12.1 million lawsuit against the Genting-owned Crockfords, claiming that they didn’t pay him the money he won. The judge said he believed Ivey’s assertion that he didn’t cheat; however, he also felt that the edge sorting plot went too far and ruled that Crockfords didn’t have to pay him.