is a UK Supreme Court case that reconsidered the test used for determining dishonesty.

Facts

Phil Ivey Phillip Dennis Ivey Jr. (born February 1, 1977) is an American professional poker player who has won ten World Series of Poker bracelets, one World Poker Tour title, and appeared at nine World Poker Tour final tables. Ivey is regarded by numero ...

, an American professional poker player, played and won a series of games of

Punto Banco Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score ...

—a variant of

baccarat Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score ...

—at Crockfords Casino in London, owned by Genting Casinos (UK) Ltd. The casino did not pay out the £7.7m he had won, as they believed Ivey had cheated by using

edge sorting Edge sorting is a technique used in advantage gambling where a player determines whether a face-down playing card is likely to be low or high at casino table games by observing, learning, and exploiting subtle unintentional differences on the bac ...

. Ivey sued the casino to recover his winnings. Both Ivey and the casino agreed that the contract contained an

implied term A contractual term is "any provision forming part of a contract". Each term gives rise to a contractual obligation, the breach of which may give rise to litigation. Not all terms are stated expressly and some terms carry less legal gravity as th ...

forbidding cheating. Ivey's lawyers argued that the appropriate test for whether cheating occurred was the same for contract as it was in section 42 of the

Gambling Act 2005 The Gambling Act 2005 (2005 c 19) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It mainly applies to England and Wales, and to Scotland, and is designed to control all forms of gambling. It transfers authority for licensing gambling from t ...

, and that cheating necessitated dishonesty, which had not been shown. At trial, High Court Judge

John Mitting Sir John Edward Mitting (born 8 October 1947) is a retired judge of the High Court of England and Wales. He is currently chairing the Undercover Policing Inquiry. Education Mitting attended Downside School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Legal care ...

held that cheating had occurred and the contract was thus invalid. The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's ruling 2–1.

Decision

The Supreme Court held that Ivey had cheated, and was thus not entitled to the payment sought from Genting Casinos. Lord Hughes considered at length whether the existing test for dishonesty was acceptable, noting that dishonesty in civil contexts is judged objectively. The existing test had been developed in the case ''

R v Ghosh ''R v Ghosh'' 982EWCA Crim 2is an English criminal law case setting out a test for dishonesty">dishonest conduct which was relevant as to many offences worded as doing an act dishonestly, such as deception, as Theft Act 1968, theft,Theft Act 19 ...

'', and required firstly that the act would be considered dishonest by an ordinary, reasonable person, and secondly that the accused would have realised that what they were doing was, by those standards, dishonest. This second component was ruled to be inadequate and only the first part of the earlier test was applied.

Reception

In the High Court case of ''DPP v Patterson'', Sir

Brian Leveson Sir Brian Henry Leveson (; born 22 June 1949) is a retired English judge who served as the President of the Queen's Bench Division and Head of Criminal Justice. Leveson chaired the public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the ...

observed that: David Ormerod and Karl Laird criticised the direction of the law following ''Ivey'', arguing that the lack of a subjective element will lead to uncertainty and a possible human rights challenge under Article 7, citing a prior challenge to ''Ghosh''.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Judgment on BAILII
Supreme Court of the United Kingdom cases Gambling case law 2017 in British law