Edge sorting is one of the best-known disputes in casino history: a technique that its users called skill and that courts treated as cheating. This page explains how it works, what the courts decided and why it is irrelevant to online live dealer games.
How edge sorting works
Playing cards are printed on large sheets and cut. If the pattern on the back isn't perfectly symmetrical, one long edge of a card can look slightly different from the other. A player who gets certain cards, for example the high cards that matter in baccarat, turned the other way round from the rest of the deck can then tell them apart while they are face down.
That requires three things: a deck with a flawed or asymmetric back, a way to get the important cards rotated, and a dealer who keeps the cards' orientation when shuffling, as an automatic shuffler can. In the Ivey case, the players asked the dealer to turn certain cards, presented as superstition.
The Phil Ivey cases
In 2012, professional poker player Phil Ivey and a partner won £7.7 million playing Punto Banco baccarat at Crockfords casino in London. The casino refused to pay, saying edge sorting was cheating. Ivey sued and lost. On 25 October 2017 the UK Supreme Court ruled in Ivey v Genting Casinos that using edge sorting while getting the croupier to rotate the cards was cheating, even though Ivey believed he had done nothing dishonest, and that the casino was entitled to withhold the winnings. The ruling also changed the test for dishonesty in English law.
Ivey and his partner were also sued in the United States by the Borgata casino in Atlantic City over baccarat winnings from edge sorting, and the court there ruled in the casino's favour on breach of contract.
Why it doesn't work at live dealer tables
- You never touch the cards and can't ask the dealer to rotate them.
- Studios follow fixed shuffling and dealing procedures, often with automatic shufflers and frequent shoe changes.
- Many live baccarat games deal cards face up or reveal them through recognition software at the moment of dealing, so there is no face-down card to read.
- Studios use casino-grade cards and the video quality makes card-back details unusable.
Attempts to gain an edge through collusion or exploiting errors at live tables breach casino terms, and casinos can void winnings and close accounts.
What actually lowers your cost in baccarat
There is no legal way to beat live baccarat. What you can do is choose the cheapest bets: banker (1.06% house edge with a 5% commission) and player (1.24%), and avoid the tie bet. See live baccarat. In blackjack, basic strategy matters more than any trick; on card counting at live tables see card counting in live blackjack.
