Poker Player Banned for Hit-and-Runs Sues London Casino

A low-stakes poker participant sought a six-figure judgment in opposition to a London on line casino over a hit-and-run ban, however ended up the get together required to pay.

The participant in query, Dr Mortaza Sahibzada, as reported by The Unbiased, advised the courtroom he is an “skilled in protected playing” and was banned from Hippodrome On line casino in September 2023 for “cashing out too quick” from poker money video games.

Poker Participant Seeks Compensation

Sahibzada, from England, frequented the PokerStars LIVE Hippodrome Poker Room, a PokerStars-branded card room that has hosted the European Poker Tour (EPT). He claims he had a successful technique, which was to win a small quantity — about £75 — after which to stop the sport, even when he had simply sat down on the desk.

This hit-and-run strategy apparently led to the on line casino completely banning the poker participant. Sahibzada claims he was successful roughly £2,000 monthly enjoying often. However he was barred from stepping foot within the on line casino ever once more, and tried to take authorized motion within the type of a £100,000 lawsuit.

Sahibzada, on the Central London County Court docket, accused on line casino managers of secretly siding with different poker gamers within the card room who disapprove of his hit-and-run technique. Many poker gamers frown upon getting up from a sport instantly after successful an enormous pot, particularly if the successful participant had simply sat down on the desk. It is without doubt one of the unwritten poker etiquette guidelines.

A on line casino worker, nonetheless, knowledgeable the courtroom that the self-described skilled poker participant had been suspended from Hippodrome in September 2013 on account of “quite a lot of disagreeable interactions with employees and considerations about drawback playing, and barred him from coming into or playing at its on line casino.”

Dr Sahibzada, a former engineering researcher, has $17,000 in dwell match cashes recorded by The Hendon Mob, however no outcomes since 2018.

He argued that his actions do not go in opposition to correct poker etiquette, and as a substitute he “was simply being extraordinarily disciplined in my technique,” He then advised the decide the gamers who disapprove of his hit-and-run techniques are racially discriminating in opposition to him, and he cited the 2010 Equality Act, which legally protects people from discrimination, harassment, and victimization within the office and wider society in the UK.

“They don’t like foreigners successful, which is how they see me – though I’m not truly a foreigner,“ he stated.

Choose Andrew Holmes, nonetheless, advised the poker participant there isn’t a foundation for the discrimination claims. The decide then knowledgeable Sahibzada that “the on line casino is entitled to determine who does or doesn’t come inside its premises and use its providers,” and threw out the case.

Even worse for the banned poker participant, Choose Holmes ordered Sahibzada to pay the on line casino £11,000 in authorized charges.

Hippodrome has performed host to quite a few large poker occasions over time, together with the PokerStars at The Hippodrome Winter Sequence final yr. The cardboard room, positioned on the on line casino’s third flooring, doesn’t have a rule in opposition to hit-and-runs.

*Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and photographer Ank Kumar.