Professional poker player Phil Ivey has accused of using a 'Robin Hood' defence at the Supreme Court today as he bids to reclaim £7.7million of casino winnings - in a case dubbed 'The Battle of the Dictionaries'.
The 40-year-old American, dubbed 'The Tiger Woods of Poker', has been fighting for five years to reclaim the winnings he took from Mayfair's Crockfords Club along with Cheung Yin Sun.
After successfully playing a version of baccarat known as Punto Banco there in 2012, Ivey was told the money would be wired to him and he left for his Las Vegas home, but it never arrived - although his stake money of £1 million was returned.
He sued the casino in 2014 after they refused to pay him his huge winnings but a High Court judge reached the landmark decision that edge-sorting was cheating according to civil law.
Phil Ivey and Cheung Yin Sun (both pictured at an earlier court hearing in 2014) are trying to reclaim £7.7million winnings
Last year the Court of Appeal rejected Ivey's argument that he was an 'advantage player' who was simply exploiting irregularities in the design on the back of the cards to work out which card was being dealt next.
Now the President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger, 핑카지노추천 together with Lady Hale, 핑카지노주소 Lord Kerr, Lord Hughes and Lord Thomas are being asked to resolve whether Ivey cheated or not.
The case has been dubbed 'the battle of the dictionaries' because Ivey relies on the Oxford English Dictionary (1989) definition of cheat ('to deal fraudulently, practice deceit') while Crockford's relies on the more recent Concise Oxford English Dictionary definition ('to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage').
Ivey did not appear in court but his barrister Richard Spearman QC argued that cheating requires dishonesty and therefore Ivey did not cheat.
After making reference to 'the battle of the dictionaries', Mr Spearman said: 'We say we have won that because we have the better dictionary.'
Ivey (pictured at the World Series of Poker 2006) is one of the world's top players
He added: 'There is no finding at all that Mr Ivey was dishonest in any
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He was found to be an honest witness who didn't believe what he was doing was dishonest.
'He contends he is entitled to be paid his winnings because edge-sorting is a legitimate advantage play technique.'
However Crockford's say that Ivey's belief about his own behaviour is irrelevant and amounts to a 'Robin Hood' defence.
Crockford's barrister Christopher Pymont QC said: 'It does not follow that just because he genuinely believed he was not a cheat he did not appreciate that what he was doing would be regarded as dishonesty by ordinary honest people.
'The key to cheating is not whether the player acted dishonestly but whether he acted deliberately to gain an unfair advantage in the game.
'He was dishonest in the criminal sense because an ordinary and honest person would not have acted as he did given that he knew full well he was changing the way the game was played in order to gain a substantial advantage.'
Mr Pymont added: 'Edge sorting was designed to and did give him a good idea of what the cards were before he placed his bet and this plainly acted to defeat the essential premise of th
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Dishonesty had nothing to do with it.
'Making his own belief as to the honesty of what he was doing the sole test of honesty in the criminal sense amounts to a sort of Robin Hood defence.'
The mythical outlaw Robin Hood famously justified his activities because he robbed from the rich to give to the poor.