A poker player banned from the Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square has lost his bid to claim £100,000 in damages from the venue, with a judge at Central London County Court throwing out the case entirely. Dr Mortaza Sahibzada, a former engineering researcher, argued that the ban breached his contract with the casino and was partly down to racial discrimination. Neither argument held up, and Sahibzada has now been ordered to pay the Hippodrome’s legal costs on top of losing the case outright.
The ‘Hit-and-Run’ Approach
Sahibzada was barred from the Hippodrome’s poker room back in the September of 2023, after other players complained about how he played. His method, by his own account, was to buy into a cash game, wait until he was up around £75, then leave immediately rather than give anyone a chance to win it back. He described this to the court as ‘extremely disciplined,’ calling himself ‘an expert in safe gambling,’ and said it earned him roughly £2,000 a month. He told the judge:
I was making a living, and I became really good in my niche, which was to play for very short hours and to have a very modest target.
Whether you think that’s a smart use of a small edge or just bad manners probably depends on whether you’ve ever been sat at the table when someone does it. Regular cash game players tend to hate it. It is known as a ‘hit-and-run’, and whilst there’s nothing against it in the rules, quitting the moment you’re up is one of those unwritten breaches of poker etiquette that gets you talked about, and evidently, in Sahibzada’s case, banned by the casino at which you play. The case turned more serious once Sahibzada argued the ban wasn’t really about his playing style at all.
What the Hippodrome Had to Say
He told the court that the players complaining about him were wealthy ‘playboys’ who didn’t like ‘foreigners winning,’ adding, somewhat awkwardly for his own case, that ‘I’m not actually a foreigner.’ He leaned on the Equality Act 2010 to support the discrimination claim. The Hippodrome’s barrister, Harry Stratton, rejected all of it. He told the court that Sahibzada’s suspension came down to ‘a number of unpleasant interactions with staff and concerns about problem gambling,’ rather than any complaints from other players.
Stratton called the whole claim ‘totally without merit’ and ‘bound to fail,’ questioning how Sahibzada had arrived at the £100,000 figure at all, telling the judge it wasn’t clear ‘that Dr Sahibzada has suffered any loss.’ Judge Andrew Holmes agreed with the casino on every point. He found no evidence that racism had influenced the Hippodrome’s decision, concluding that the dispute came down to frustration amongst other players over Sahibzada’s style of play rather than anything else. On the breach of contract claim, the judge was equally clear, saying:
The casino is entitled to decide who does or doesn’t come within its premises and use its services.
It is not just a moral defeat for Sahibzada. Along with losing the case, he has been ordered to pay the Hippodrome £11,000 in legal costs, which is a bill that rather dwarfs any of the £75 pots he was cashing out of. Although long term gamblers are bound to feel as though the casino has, once again, managed to end up on the winning side, there will be plenty that have a moral disagreement with the manner in which Sahibzada used to play and will feel that the right decision was reached, even if they don’t necessarily like the organisation that ended up on the winning side.