You see lots of players with these tics, and the casino likely only realized what he had actually been up to upon a replay of the game, as they normally will do with big wins. Phil Ivey has twice won 10 million dollar purses using this technique on unwitting baccarat dealers, but both times he was later refused payment by the casinos after escalating court battles (and honestly, I'm not entirely sure what he did should have been illegal.) I think in the first instance he was acting like he was very superstitious, and needed each positioned a certain way. By the time the cards are washed (every 45 minutes or so) almost every face in a two-deck could have been rotated. For example, each time a player folds his hand during a game of pitch (blackjack), they could attempt to spin their face card 180 degrees so the flaw faces the opposite way of the rest of the deck, and is thus identifiable in future hands.

However, if a player can position the cards himself, a large advantage can be gained. This visual flaw could theoretically be tracked during play, but it wouldn't really benefit anyone. The cards have been punched out of a larger sheet, and this process can sometimes result in a pattern that varies the slightest bit in the corners, especially if they are rounded. Grab a deck of cards and examine the pattern on the back of one of them. The casino isn't gonna be like 'aw shucks he got us on that one, now we owe this schmuck with the silly vest half a million and have literally no recourse whatsoever to obtain it from the person who promised it.'īasically, when cards are cut, tiny imperfections can arise. I'm pretty sure they'd hold Bond to that tip.

He slid one to the dealer and it was witnessed by the tourney organizers, the casino and the dude from the Swiss bank. It's a piece of plastic that represents a dollar amount. You couldn't take a chip to McDonald's and use it as legal tender.

Everyone's like 'zomg chips don't actually have worth outside of the tournament so he actually gave the dealer nothing!' Well technically they don't really have worth inside the tournament either, they're just a representation of your place in the game. You know how you know that's probably the case? Because the other explanation makes zero fucking sense haha. I always just assumed the 500k was deducted from his winnings. The chip is just representative of Bond's intent to tip. That part isn't hard to understand - although you wouldn't know it by the responses in this thread lol - but I don't think that was the point of the chip slide.

Casino royale card scene