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There is no moral high ground in gambling. The house has the edge, and has designed it to be so. Phil Ivey is a smart gambler and knew how to shift the odds int
by lrm242 12y ago
There is no moral high ground in gambling. The house has the edge, and has designed it to be so. Phil Ivey is a smart gambler and knew how to shift the odds into his favor without cheating. He requested specific things, such as a specific flavor of deck that came from the casino itself and a mandarin speaking dealer. The casino agreed to these requests because it wanted Phil to play. They could have said no.
Phil Ivey's edge sorting hack is phenomenal. That the casino thinks they should be insulated from smart players is unfortunate but it is their prerogative to refuse play. However, it absolutely should NOT be possible to claw back winnings from players who were NOT cheating, only playing smartly.
- mattzito 12y ago...but he lied. If they had said, "Hey, why do you want this?" and he said, "I think I've got a system for beating baccarat", and they went ahead anyway, they're idiots. But they asked and he said that he was just superstitious, it was for luck. At that point he was being disingenuous. Was it legal? Probably, I'm not a lawyer. Was it ethical? I'm leaning towards no.
- CDRdude 12y agoIn a great many circumstances (i.e. not testifying in court), lying is not illegal. If you're lying to a casino, I don't think it's even immoral.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoThere is a large valley between lying and fraud.
- CaveTech 12y agoBeing disingenuous is not a crime, in fact, it's incredibly common. No one should be compelled to reveal their true intentions, regardless of if they're in good faith or bad. Intentions are subjective, actions are not.