Professional poker player sues casino

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) A professional poker player has sued a casino that claimed he won $9.6 million by cheating at baccarat, alleging it knew about defects in the cards and then destroyed evidence.

Phil Ivey and his co-defendant, Cheng Yin Sun, filed a countersuit recently against the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, which sued the pair last year.

The Borgata suit said Ivey and Sun took advantage of a defect in cards made by Gemaco that enabled them to sort and arrange good cards in baccarat.

Ivey says Gemaco was responsible for producing cards within contractual and industry standards and should be held responsible for any damages.

He also says the Borgata knew the card manufacturing process didn’t produce perfectly symmetrical card backs.

Ivey says in the suit that the Borgata intentionally destroyed the cards at issue “eviscerating the defendants’ ability to prove the lack of any defective cards.”

They demand unspecified compensatory and punitive damages against the Atlantic City casino.

The casino claims the technique called edge sorting that was used by Ivey and Sun violates New Jersey casino gambling regulations.

The lawsuit claims the cards were defective in that the pattern on the back of them was not uniform.