After a lengthy legal process that spanned more than five years, the Borgata has managed to snatch the first chunk of what it is owed by poker pro Phil Ivey.
Poker news outlet Flushdraw this week reported that the Atlantic City casino has seized Ivey’s six-figure payout from this year’s $50,000 buy-in WSOP Poker Players Championship. The player finished eighth in one of the WSOP’s most prestigious tournaments, good for $124,410.
However, Ivey did not see much of his winnings as the Borgata was ready to collect it as the first installment of a hefty $10.1 million debt. Following Ivey’s eighth-place finish, the US Marshals Services confiscated his payout as a payment towards the Atlantic City casino.
The Ivey-Borgata Saga
Borgata’s legal battle with Ivey started back in 2014 when Atlantic City’s highest grossing casino filed a lawsuit against the player, seeking to get back $9.6 million it paid out to Ivey in baccarat winnings.
In 2012, Ivey and his baccarat partner Kelly Cheung Yin Sun played baccarat at the Borgata. Through the controversial technique of edge-sorting, which involves memorizing tiny discrepancies on the backs of playing cards and then using those to gain advantage over the house, the two players amassed winnings of $9.6 million over several playing sessions, which the casino paid out.
Two years later, the Borgata figured out that Ivey and Sun used the technique to improve their odds and filed a lawsuit that paved the way for a long legal battle.
Court Sides with Borgata
After years of legal challenges and bitter bickering over whether Ivey and Sun cheated the casino and whether they should return their winnings to the Borgata, a court ruled that Ivey should pay back $10.1 million to the gambling venue, including his $9.6 million baccarat winnings and another $500,000 he won playing craps at the Atlantic City Boardwalk property.
However, Borgata was not really able to get hold of the money it was owed by the New Jersey-born poker professional. In the state, the casino could only find an empty Wells Fargo account in the player’s name. According to Borgata’s lawyers, Ivey had transferred his baccarat winnings to a Mexican bank account.
To have the money paid back, the gambling venue went after the player’s assets outside his home state. A court allowed the Borgata to pursue Ivey’s assets in Nevada, which eventually enabled the casino to seize the player’s winnings from his Poker Players Championship run.
Borgata’s attempts to collect back what it previously paid out to Ivey and his companion player raise serious doubts that the poker professional would be playing much poker anywhere in the US.
Ivey is one of the most successful players in the history of live tournament poker. His winnings amount to more than $26.3 million and he has won ten WSOP gold bracelets among other prestigious poker trophies.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay up to date on the day’s top casino news stories
