David Corker comments on Phil Ivey Supreme Court cheating case in the FT, The Telegraph and The Law Society Gazette

Top poker player Phil Ivey has lost his case in the UK Supreme Court to recover £7.7m in winnings, with the gambler complaining that British judges have “no experience or understanding” of casinos.

The setback for Mr Ivey, who is a 10-time winner of the World Series of Poker and has career gambling earnings of more than $23m, is also a landmark judgment in the UK, overhauling how fraud cases are presented and potentially making it easier for prosecutors to secure fraud convictions, according to legal experts.

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David Corker, Partner at Corker Binning, commented: “This decision fundamentally changes one of the most basic facets of criminal fraud law: the meaning of dishonesty which can solely determine when an accused is guilty or not. Often in criminal fraud cases the facts – the actions of the accused – are agreed, it all depends on whether or not he acted dishonestly.

Before today the prosecution had to prove that the accused knew or believed that an ordinary person would find his actions or intentions so repugnant that they would castigate them as dishonest. That the accused knew his conduct would be regarded as repugnant but nonetheless persevered.

No longer must a prosecutor prove that the accused had belief or knowledge of how their actions would be regarded. A prosecutor now need only place before the court facts of what the accused did, and thought, and invite the court to hold that he was dishonest. This is a huge shift towards an objective test of dishonesty, which is critical in fraud cases.”

Read the full articles in the FT, The Telegraph and The Law Society Gazette.