It sounds like a heist movie. A world-class poker legend walks into a high-stakes baccarat room with a mysterious partner. They play for days. They win nearly $20 million across two continents. Then, the casinos refuse to pay, the lawyers get involved, and the entire gambling world starts arguing over a term most people had never heard of: edge sorting.
Honestly, if you follow gambling, you know Phil Ivey. He’s the "Tiger Woods of Poker." But the Phil Ivey edge sorting saga wasn't about poker faces or bluffing. It was about a tiny, microscopic flaw in the way playing cards are manufactured and a massive lapse in how casinos protect their own games.
The story is wild. It involves a woman known as the "Queen of Sorts," a specific brand of cards, and a legal battle that literally changed the definition of "cheating" in the UK.
The Partnership: Phil Ivey and the "Baccarat Machine"
Phil Ivey didn't do this alone. In fact, he couldn't have. The brains behind the operation was Cheung Yin "Kelly" Sun.
Sun had a grudge. After being jailed in Las Vegas over a disputed gambling debt (which she later paid), she spent her time in a cell obsessing over how to destroy the casinos. She didn't want to break the law; she wanted to beat them at their own game. She spent years training her eyes to see things you and I wouldn't notice in a million years.
She teamed up with Ivey because he had the bankroll and the "whale" status. Casinos would do almost anything to get Phil Ivey to play at their tables. He was the perfect cover.
How Edge Sorting Actually Works (It’s Not Magic)
Most people think "edge sorting" is some high-tech hacking. It’s not. It’s basically just being really, really observant.
Think about the back of a playing card. Usually, there's a pattern, like a series of diamonds. In a perfect world, that pattern is perfectly symmetrical. But we don't live in a perfect world. Because of how cards are cut during manufacturing, the pattern is often slightly off-center.
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On one edge of the card, you might see a full diamond. On the opposite edge, you might see only a half-diamond.
The Setup
To make this work, Ivey and Sun needed a few things.
- The Right Cards: They specifically requested Gemaco brand cards. These were known to have that slight asymmetry.
- Superstition as a Weapon: Ivey told the dealers he was superstitious. He asked them to turn certain cards "for luck."
- The Sort: When a "good" card (like a 6, 7, 8, or 9 in Baccarat) came up, Sun would ask the dealer to rotate it 180 degrees.
The dealer, thinking they were just indulging a high roller’s quirks, complied. Now, all the "good" cards were oriented one way, and the "bad" cards were oriented the other.
Because the casino used an automatic shuffler, the cards were never rotated during the shuffle. The "sort" stayed intact. By the second or third shoe, Ivey and Sun knew exactly what was coming off the top before it was even flipped.
The $12 Million Night at Crockfords
In August 2012, Ivey and Sun hit Crockfords Club in London. This is one of the oldest and most prestigious casinos in the world. Over two nights, they played Punto Banco (a version of Baccarat) and won £7.7 million (roughly $12 million at the time).
Crockfords got suspicious. They agreed to wire Ivey his winnings but only sent his initial £1 million stake back. They kept the rest.
Ivey did something bold: he sued them. He didn't hide what he did. He admitted to edge sorting, but he argued that it was "advantage play," not cheating. He argued he used the casino's own equipment and staff against them without ever touching the cards.
The Borgata Battle: $9.6 Million on the Line
While the London case was brewing, it came out that Ivey had pulled the same move at the Borgata in Atlantic City. He had won $9.6 million there over four sessions in 2012.
The Borgata was furious. Unlike Crockfords, they had already paid Ivey. They sued him to get the money back.
This created a massive legal split. In the US, a judge eventually ruled that Ivey and Sun didn't "cheat" in the traditional sense, but they did breach their contract with the casino. The judge ordered them to pay back the $10.1 million (winnings plus interest).
Why the Courts Ruled Against Ivey
This is where it gets interesting for law nerds.
In 2017, the UK Supreme Court gave a landmark ruling. They decided that Ivey did cheat, even if he didn't think he was cheating. The court changed the "test for dishonesty." They ruled that if a reasonable person would find the behavior dishonest, it’s cheating—regardless of the player's intent.
The judges said Ivey had "staged a carefully planned and executed sting." By tricking the dealer into rotating cards, he interfered with the random nature of the game.
Ivey’s response? "Can someone tell me how you can have honest cheating?"
He felt he was just being smarter than the house. The house has the edge 99% of the time. Why shouldn't a player be allowed to find an edge of their own?
What This Means for You (Actionable Insights)
The era of Phil Ivey-style edge sorting is basically over. Casinos aren't stupid. They've learned their lesson. But there are still lessons for anyone interested in the "edge" of gaming and business.
1. Watch the Procedures
If you're looking for an advantage in any game, look at the procedures, not just the rules. The weakness wasn't the cards; it was the dealer's willingness to rotate them and the automatic shuffler's inability to randomize the orientation.
2. The "Turn" is the Killer
Casinos now implement a "turn" in their shuffle. This means they take half the deck and rotate it 180 degrees before the final shuffle. This instantly kills any edge-sorting attempt. If you don't see a dealer doing this, that deck is technically vulnerable (though good luck finding a casino that still uses Gemaco's old patterns).
3. Understanding the "Legal Edge"
Ivey's mistake wasn't the sorting; it was the intervention. Card counting in blackjack is legal because you are only using information that is publicly available to everyone. Edge sorting became illegal in the eyes of the court because Ivey actively manipulated the game environment (the dealer and the cards).
4. Audit Your Own "Equipment"
If you run a business or a game, you need to audit your tools. The Borgata and Crockfords lost millions because they didn't realize their own cards had a "signature" on the back. Always check for asymmetries in your own processes that others might exploit.
The Phil Ivey edge sorting case remains the greatest "cat and mouse" story in modern gambling history. It proved that even the most secure institutions have blind spots—you just have to be willing to look at the edges.
To stay protected or simply to understand the game better, pay attention to the shuffle procedure. If the dealer isn't rotating the cards, the game isn't truly random. That’s the space where legends like Kelly Sun and Phil Ivey found their fortune—and their biggest legal headaches.