'That it was clever and skilful, and must have involved remarkably sharp eyes, cannot alter that truth.' 'That, in a game which depends on random delivery of unknown cards, is inevitably cheating. Mr Ivey, said Lord Hughes, did much more than observe - he took 'positive steps to fix the deck'. 'He accomplished exactly the same result through the unwitting but directed actions of the croupier, tricking her into thinking that what she did was irrelevant.' He added: 'If he had surreptitiously gained access to the shoe and re-arranged the cards physically himself, no-one would begin to doubt that he was cheating. 'What Mr Ivey did was to stage a carefully planned and executed sting.' In the Supreme Court, Lord Hughes said it was an essential element of Punto Banco that the game was one of pure chance, with cards delivered entirely at random and unknowable by the punters or the house. Mr Ivey argued that he did nothing more than exploit Crockfords' failures to take proper steps to protect itself against a player of his ability. That interference was of such a quality as to constitute cheating. There was no doubt, she added, that the actions of Mr Ivey and another gambler, Cheung Yin Sun, interfered with the process by which Crockfords played Punto Banco with Mr Ivey. In the Court of Appeal, Lady Justice Arden said the Gambling Act 2005 provided that someone may cheat 'without dishonesty or intention to deceive: depending on the circumstances it may be enough that he simply interferes with the process of the game'. Mr Ivey did not personally touch any cards, but persuaded the croupier to rotate the most valuable cards by intimating that he was superstitious.

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