An Australian casino player is taking Royal Caribbean to court, arguing that the company banned him from sailing with its services and from playing at its casinos over his ability to count cards. After previously winning a legal battle against Star Casino, Mark Timothy Grant is now moving to confront the cruise line.
Aussie Advantage Player Clashes with Royal Caribbean Over Counting Cards
Grant argues that he has booked five Royal Caribbean cruises that were valued at a total of AUD 22,000. He booked the cruises with money he won playing at the Royal Caribbean’s ships’ casinos.
However, before he could even board the first cruise, Grant was told that he would not be able to proceed onboard. Grant had his son and partner along with him. The company only then went to inform Grant that he had been placed on a “no sail” list, effectively a ban, because of “breaking the house rules” in the casino.
Royal Caribbean informed Grant that he had broken various casino rules. While Grant filed a legal action against Royal Caribbean with the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, he has enjoyed qualified success so far.
Grant is suing the company to reimburse him for the AUD 22,000 he is owed. However, his case was at first shot down. Grant, however, appealed the decision and saw the court agree that it qualified as a consumer-trader dispute.
But as mentioned earlier, this is not the first time Grant has been caught in a similar legal tangle with Star Casino, which accused the man of using a strategy known as “edge sorting,” which is essentially discovering an imperfection in the make of the cards used in a table game.
By leaning into that imperfection, players may then exploit the knowledge and tip the house edge in their favor. Most casinos and courts around the world consider this to be cheating.
However, the judgment in that specific case against Star Casino ruled that Grant was a self-professed advantage player, and that a casino where the staff was competent and the games were operated correctly had nothing to worry about.
Grant has maintained that advantage play is not “dishonest or cheating” ever since his first legal brush with Star Casino.
However, he may have indeed been able to spot the imperfection in the cards, which is an outcome completely different than what was ruled in the case of Phil Ivey, a popular poker pro who ended up using edge sorting to win millions of dollars, but had to forfeit or repay his winnings in the end.
Royal Caribbean Equates Advantage Play to Cheating
Grant said, at the time of his own case against Star Casino, that he had noticed cards being asymmetrical, but that he had no way of knowing what the next card on his table would be – just like other players there.
How does this apply to Grant’s case against Royal Caribbean? Well, things may be different there; Royal Caribbean takes advantage of players in general, arguing that the practice is tantamount to cheating.
The company also prohibits bad behavior, harassment, recording devices at tables, inappropriate handling of cards or chips, hogging slots, and deviating from house rules, as per the official website. Grant has not been accused of any of this specifically, other than his alleged “card counting.”