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 casino said the croupier had been persuaded to keep used decks in play.

The Phil Ivey cases

Professional poker player Phil Ivey 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.

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.
  • Some 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.
  • The video stream makes small card-back details hard to see.

Attempts to gain an edge through collusion or exploiting errors at live tables can breach casino terms, and casinos may 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.