Playtech launches Prestige Baccarat

Playtech, the world's leading gaming content and software, systems and services supplier, has launched Prestige Baccarat, the second installment in the growing series of hugely popular Prestige live casino titles offering unique and superior gameplay, including five dynamic camera views for a closer to the action offering.

The classic game of Baccarat has been given a modern day makeover with Playtech's offering unique to the live casino market. The live Baccarat experience has been significantly enhanced with five gameplay angles and action replays of winning hands enabling players to get closer to the action than in any physical or online environment.

Staged in a newly designed environment, Prestige Baccarat offers a custom-designed cloth and backdrop which depicts the Chinese symbol for Luck, plus a series of specially positioned cameras which focus on the Squeeze element of Baccarat and reinforce the values and experience this type of game is aimed to deliver.

The game's user experience and journey has also been re-engineered and enhanced for ease of use, while the dealers themselves have been hand-picked for their Baccarat skillset and native languages depending on which options players select.

The game showcases Playtech Live's first re-engineered user interface which, following the company's release of HTML5 Roulette, has been built in close co-operation with licensees. Extensive discovery sessions and customer feedback and the addition of hand-picked expert Baccarat dealers, combine to create Playtech Live's best ever UI to date.

Reade more >>

Phil Ivey loses appeal against Genting Casinos

Phil Ivey has definitively lost his appeal against Genting Casinos U.K. this week. The appeal concerned whether he cheated by using a technique called edge sorting to win almost $10 million during a game of baccarat. It was decided that Ivey had been manipulating the odds in his favor and influencing the croupier to deal cards in specific ways.

Ivey won the sum in 2012 while playing at London's Crockfords Club Casino. Edge sorting – considered by some to be morally dubious – involves the player attempting to differentiate face-down cards as being high or low based on subtle differences in the cards' design or other flaws. Ivey claims this technique is perfectly legitimate.

The U.K. High Court seems to feel otherwise, as back in October 2014, Judge John Mitting ruled against Ivey's claim after he sued the Genting-owned casino in May 2013.

January 2014 saw Ivey appeal against the London High Court's decision. Now, more than two years later, judges of the Court of Appeal confirmed the original verdict of the case, meaning Ivey won't be seeing any of the money.

Reade more >>

Phil Ivey, court annuls winnings

It ends with a stalemate the story of Phil Ivey, one of the most accomplished champions of poker (with almost 17 ​​million dollars won in his career is nicknamed the Tiger Woods of poker), who had sued the Crockfords casino in London, where in 'August of 2012 was the protagonist of an amazing session of baccarat. In two days he had managed to win about 8 million pounds (nearly ten million euro, in fact).

A sum ever come to his account, though: the casino looking at the images of the CCTV cameras had noticed that Ivey had used the technique of '"edge-sorting", a system that enables us to recognize the cards by observing the imperfections on the back. Ivey, repeatedly, had asked the dealer to turn the card 180 degrees when they are removed from the shoe, for a better look at them and decide whether to stay or to call again once they are recognized. Hence the decision of the gaming room not paying the winnings and return to the player wagers made, about 1.2 million euro.

The case was then finished the High Court in London yesterday where the judge ruled in favor of the casino, claim considering the decision not to pay out winnings. Ivey, claiming the sum offending, claimed that he never cheated, but simply for having used, thanks to the skills gained through years of his career at the green table, "a security flaw in the casino." A different opinion was instead the court to the effect that Ivey would have used the unsuspecting dealer as "innocent means" for their own purposes, a behavior that in the opinion of the judge, "is similar to that of those coffin in here."

Reade more >>