Celebrity poker player Phil Ivey and a gambling partner were ordered Thursday to pay $10.1 million to the Borgata casino for four days of baccarat games in which they won $9 million by identifying playing cards by tiny manufacturing defects.
U.S. District Judge Noel Hillman in Camden ruled that Ivey and Cheng Yin Sun were obligated to return the benefits they received during the gambling caper because they violated the ban on marked cards in the Casino Control Act and thus breached their agreement with the Borgata. Hillman set the damages at $10.1 million after adopting a status quo ante theory of computing the damages—the position of the parties before formation of the contract. The judge rejected an alternate theory of damages also suggested by the Borgata—expectation damages—which amounts to what the casino would have won had Ivey and Sun not engaged in edge-sorting. Hillman called that theory “too speculative a remedy.”
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