6 ms·

In that case anyone who lost a game of baccarat (or any card game) played with those type of cards at anytime in NJ has a case against the casino and could sue

In that case anyone who lost a game of baccarat (or any card game) played with those type of cards at anytime in NJ has a case against the casino and could sue to get the money back because the contract was illegal. I wonder if those are standard cards used at the casino ... they do offer them as souvenirs so it seems like they might be. If they are used by the casino or other casinos for games, that's probably thousands of games and potential court cases. Sounds like a class action lawsuit actually.

bluesign 10y ago
if you can prove, casino knows[1] that the cards are not symmetrical, yes. "knowingly to use or possess any marked cards"
- croon 10y ago
  Isn't the ruling above saying just that? Otherwise they're having their cake and eating it too. So which is it?
  - jpatokal 10y ago
    My reading of that is that at least one party has to knowingly use the marked cards. If neither party is aware that the cards are not symmetrical, there is no unfair advantage and the game is fair.
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago
    They know it now; they did not know it previously.
    - EdHominem 10y ago
      Right, but it's not dependent on intent. The other casino didn't intend to leave the deck unshuffled, this casino didn't intend to buy marked cards. But, they did. So the games played with those cards(/unshuffled decks) shouldn't count. If the law doesn't function in both directions it isn't law, it's codified graft.
      - pavel_lishin 10y ago
        > Right, but it's not dependent on intent. But it does appear to be dependent on knowledge, as per the law quoted in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227445 Ivey and Sun knew how to read the marked cards.
        EdHominem 10y ago
        If I was caught carrying marked cards nobody would believe I didn't know. The casino has an entire anti-fraud department which exists to catch this sort of thing and we're supposed to believe they didn't notice this for years... But that's only half the post you linked to... Importantly, the precedent involving the unshuffled deck didn't involve knowledge. Despite everyone's intentions the game was not setup correctly so it didn't count. If so, then these games (all games with these decks) were also not setup correctly. Either all games with these cards are improper or none are. And importantly, nothing other than penalizing the casino will change anything. This ruling incentivizes them to leave marks in their cards, dice, etc, and call them out in the future to invalidate any unpleasant results.
        jdmichal 10y ago
        Considering that the imperfections were on the order of 1/32 of an inch, or 0.8 millimeters... Yes, I can absolutely believe that they were missed on visual inspection.
  - csydas 10y ago
    Well it's irrelevant in this instance since the exploit used by the gambler and the woman required the dealer to rotate and leak information about the cards. The cards themselves did not seem to be enough for the gambler Ivey to exploit the system, they needed to be rotated. Now if any other player performed such a task, sure, they're probably able to make a case too. But not every baccarat player met the criteria in this case.
    - croon 10y ago
      But seeing as the cards then are identical to other cards they're using, can they still be considered marked? That's what I mean, they're either marked or not.
      - jdmichal 10y ago
        Consider a deck of cards that has a triangle printed on the back. This triangle is printed exactly the same on every card, such that they are all indistinguishable from each other. Now rotate some of the cards 180°. Those rotated cards are now distinguishable from the other cards, because the card print is not rotational-symmetric. This rotation is what caused the cards to be marked, even though the printed pattern was exactly the same. Typically card backs are rotational-symmetric in order to avoid this. However, it seems like this particular pattern had imperfections -- within 1/32 of an inch -- which a trained eye could recognize. (The judge even admitted this as quite a feat.)
        croon 10y ago
        I understand technically how it worked, I'm merely arguing that their interpretation of "marked", and also their interpretation of the party doing so is quite liberal, at least for a courtroom. The player (Ivey) did not bring, substitute, touch nor coerce the casino into doing anything with the cards. His assistant asked the dealer to flip some cards and he abided willingly, supposedly on behest of the casino to accomodate a whale. They did nothing under the table. Like most people on here IANAL, but this ruling doesn't seem right, where "right" is the letter of the law.

bluesign 10y ago

if you can prove, casino knows[1] that the cards are not symmetrical, yes. "knowingly to use or possess any marked cards"

croon 10y ago
Isn't the ruling above saying just that? Otherwise they're having their cake and eating it too. So which is it?
- jpatokal 10y ago
  My reading of that is that at least one party has to knowingly use the marked cards. If neither party is aware that the cards are not symmetrical, there is no unfair advantage and the game is fair.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  They know it now; they did not know it previously.
  - EdHominem 10y ago
    Right, but it's not dependent on intent. The other casino didn't intend to leave the deck unshuffled, this casino didn't intend to buy marked cards. But, they did. So the games played with those cards(/unshuffled decks) shouldn't count. If the law doesn't function in both directions it isn't law, it's codified graft.
    - pavel_lishin 10y ago
      > Right, but it's not dependent on intent. But it does appear to be dependent on knowledge, as per the law quoted in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227445 Ivey and Sun knew how to read the marked cards.
      - EdHominem 10y ago
        If I was caught carrying marked cards nobody would believe I didn't know. The casino has an entire anti-fraud department which exists to catch this sort of thing and we're supposed to believe they didn't notice this for years... But that's only half the post you linked to... Importantly, the precedent involving the unshuffled deck didn't involve knowledge. Despite everyone's intentions the game was not setup correctly so it didn't count. If so, then these games (all games with these decks) were also not setup correctly. Either all games with these cards are improper or none are. And importantly, nothing other than penalizing the casino will change anything. This ruling incentivizes them to leave marks in their cards, dice, etc, and call them out in the future to invalidate any unpleasant results.
        jdmichal 10y ago
        Considering that the imperfections were on the order of 1/32 of an inch, or 0.8 millimeters... Yes, I can absolutely believe that they were missed on visual inspection.
- csydas 10y ago
  Well it's irrelevant in this instance since the exploit used by the gambler and the woman required the dealer to rotate and leak information about the cards. The cards themselves did not seem to be enough for the gambler Ivey to exploit the system, they needed to be rotated. Now if any other player performed such a task, sure, they're probably able to make a case too. But not every baccarat player met the criteria in this case.
  - croon 10y ago
    But seeing as the cards then are identical to other cards they're using, can they still be considered marked? That's what I mean, they're either marked or not.
    - jdmichal 10y ago
      Consider a deck of cards that has a triangle printed on the back. This triangle is printed exactly the same on every card, such that they are all indistinguishable from each other. Now rotate some of the cards 180°. Those rotated cards are now distinguishable from the other cards, because the card print is not rotational-symmetric. This rotation is what caused the cards to be marked, even though the printed pattern was exactly the same. Typically card backs are rotational-symmetric in order to avoid this. However, it seems like this particular pattern had imperfections -- within 1/32 of an inch -- which a trained eye could recognize. (The judge even admitted this as quite a feat.)
      - croon 10y ago
        I understand technically how it worked, I'm merely arguing that their interpretation of "marked", and also their interpretation of the party doing so is quite liberal, at least for a courtroom. The player (Ivey) did not bring, substitute, touch nor coerce the casino into doing anything with the cards. His assistant asked the dealer to flip some cards and he abided willingly, supposedly on behest of the casino to accomodate a whale. They did nothing under the table. Like most people on here IANAL, but this ruling doesn't seem right, where "right" is the letter of the law.