Casino ban overturned for accused ‘card sharks’

Two men accused of ‘dishonest play’ at two casinos have won a legal bid to have a ban by Star Entertainment overturned.

Two men have succeeded in having a ban by Star Entertainment overturned, after they were accused of “edge sorting” or spotting irregularities on the back of cards to gain an advantage. Picture: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP

Two men accused by gambling giant Star Entertainment of “dishonest play” have won a legal bid to have their ban from two Queensland casinos overturned.

Mark Timothy Grant and Nathan Trent Anderson were barred from entering Brisbane’s Treasury casino and The Star on the Gold Coast in 2018.

Star Entertainment accused the pair of behaviour akin to “edge-sorting”, where players spot irregularities in the pattern on the back of cards to gain an advantage.

Mr Grant and Mr Anderson played the card game Platoon, similar to Black Jack, over two days in February 2018. The cards in use were manufactured by Japanese company Angel, and some of them had a small manufacturing defect on the back.

“That information was used to predict whether the value of cards dealt would probably be high or low,” a Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal judgment read. Security camera footage captured Mr Grant sitting in front of the dealing shoe and hand signalling to Mr Anderson during play.

Star claimed the pair were playing “dishonestly” and could be banned under the Casino Control Act, but Mr Grant argued the strategy gave them a legitimate advantage.

In his evidence, Mr Grant said advantage players were not a threat to casinos where the staff were competent, and the games were operated correctly.

Mr Anderson agreed he was following Mr Grant’s directions and they knew that “this particular table had the cards with this particular anomaly”. He did not believe he was obliged to report the defect to the casino.

QCAT member Ann Fitzpatrick found Mr Grant could reasonably predict whether the value of cards dealt would probably be high or low but that Star knew Angel playing cards had defects and, if it believed that was prejudicial, they would have been removed from play.

“I find that neither Mr Grant nor Mr Anderson engaged in dishonest acts in relation to gaming by using knowledge of the presence of asymmetrically backed cards to make what Mr Grant considered to be a better guess as to the value of cards about to be dealt,” she wrote in her decision. “That is particularly so because the knowledge was used in combination with other information apparent in the games played and by the application of natural card skills and intelligence.”

Their bans were overturned.