## Facts

- Phil Ivey, a professional gambler, played Punto Banco at Crockfords Club, a London casino, and used a technique known as edge-sorting to gain an advantage by exploiting minute pattern differences on the backs of playing cards.
- Ivey’s actions enabled him to accurately predict card values, resulting in significant winnings of approximately £7.7 million.
- Genting Casinos refused to pay the winnings, arguing edge-sorting constituted cheating and breached implied terms of the gambling contract.
- Ivey brought legal proceedings to recover his winnings, contending his conduct was not cheating.

## Issues

1. Whether Ivey’s use of edge-sorting constituted cheating under the terms implied in the gambling contract and the Gambling Act 2005.
2. Whether the legal test for dishonesty, as defined by the Ghosh test, should be retained or reformulated.
3. Whether Ivey’s subjective belief about his conduct affected the determination of dishonesty.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court found that Ivey’s conduct amounted to cheating under the implied terms of the gambling agreement.
- The Court overruled the second limb of the Ghosh test, rejecting the need for a subjective assessment of dishonesty.
- The Court held that dishonesty should be determined by the objective standards of ordinary decent people, based on the actual state of knowledge or belief of the defendant as to the facts.
- Ivey’s claim for the winnings was rejected.

## Legal Principles

- The test for dishonesty is now objective: the fact-finder must ascertain the defendant’s actual knowledge or belief as to the facts, then assess whether conduct was dishonest according to the standards of ordinary decent people.
- The subjective limb of the Ghosh test—requiring that the defendant realize their conduct was dishonest by those standards—is no longer part of the law.
- Greater consistency and clarity are achieved in the legal approach to dishonesty across both civil and criminal law.
- Cheating in the context of gaming contracts includes conduct that undermines the integrity of the game, even absent deception or explicit rule-breaking.

## Conclusion

Ivey v Genting Casinos (UK) Ltd [2017] UKSC 67 is a landmark judgment that rejected the subjective Ghosh test for dishonesty, establishing a uniform, objective standard based on societal norms. The Supreme Court held that Ivey’s edge-sorting amounted to cheating, clarifying the law of dishonesty for both civil and criminal contexts and ensuring future cases assess dishonesty by the standards of ordinary decent people.
