Players were not allowed to handle the cards. In this case, they were playing mini-Baccarat. In traditional Baccarat, players are allowed to touch the cards and even bend and turn them all they want, but all 8 decks are thrown out after every shoe (i.e. touched cards are never played again). In mini-Baccarat, players do not touch the cards, and the cards are reshuffled instead of thrown away. This type of scheme only works in mini-Baccarat (and Punto Banco - a mini-Baccarat variation), and the casino would only comply with the unusual requests that made this scheme possible for very big players. Casinos are very tolerant of high rollers - Caesars Palace was fined $250,000 a few years ago for allowing a man to jump up on a Baccarat table and dance before placing his bets.
In this case, Ivey had an Asian woman with him, and she told the dealer that she was superstitious and asked that the dealer turn cards of certain values a different direction. That she was Asian was important because the casinos are claiming that Ivey requested that his dealers speak Mandarin Chinese, and that the instructions to turn the cards were given by the woman in Mandarin so that supervisors wouldn't hear and immediately object to the request. In any event, the dealers complied. This incredibly simple strategy apparently worked at Borgata and Crockfords in London, to the tune of over $20 million in combined winnings. Because the casino could have simply said "no," I find it extremely unlikely that the Borgata will prevail here.
This was much more of a social engineering hack than anything else. Interestingly, because of this issue, casinos (at least in Las Vegas) have purchased cards with a new type of background that looks like pixelated noise - much harder to do this with.
> A complaint filed by the board against Caesars Palace says a customer was
> playing baccarat in the high-limit baccarat room on Oct. 10, 2009. On three
> separate occasions, the man climbed onto the baccarat table from his chair,
> walked on the table and made a bet before returning to stand on his chair,
> eventually sitting down, according to the complaint.
>
> On the second occasion, the player performed a dance on the table before
> returning to his chair, the control board said. The three incidents took
> place over a 45-minute period, according to the complaint.
(I think this is what you are referring to. But it is from 4 years ago.)
Yes, that is the incident I was referring to...I guess I just read about it last year. Here is the new card back: http://prntscr.com/3cjo5v (here's a closeup: http://prntscr.com/3cjlqk). This is much different than the diamond design they used until recently that enabled this scheme - http://prntscr.com/3cjnne
They do not punch a hole/heart out of the middle of these decks anymore? When I was younger my grandfather would always bring me decks of cards and they all had holes punched out of the middle.
No, these days on the cards they sell in the gift shops they shave 2 of the edges off. They still stick out if put in with other, non-shaved cards in live play at the tables, but are more useful than cards with holes in them :).
What a ridiculous lawsuit. It's barely removed from a bank suing a customer because the customer walked in and said, "Can I have a million dollars?" and the bank gave them a million dollars.
In this case, Ivey had an Asian woman with him, and she told the dealer that she was superstitious and asked that the dealer turn cards of certain values a different direction. That she was Asian was important because the casinos are claiming that Ivey requested that his dealers speak Mandarin Chinese, and that the instructions to turn the cards were given by the woman in Mandarin so that supervisors wouldn't hear and immediately object to the request. In any event, the dealers complied. This incredibly simple strategy apparently worked at Borgata and Crockfords in London, to the tune of over $20 million in combined winnings. Because the casino could have simply said "no," I find it extremely unlikely that the Borgata will prevail here.
This was much more of a social engineering hack than anything else. Interestingly, because of this issue, casinos (at least in Las Vegas) have purchased cards with a new type of background that looks like pixelated noise - much harder to do this with.