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Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (Paperback)
by Ben Mezrich
| Category:
Games, Gambling, Thriller, Non-fiction |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 158.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A good Las Vegas story and a real page turner, this book is a lesson in greed. Recommended for a long-haul plane ride. |
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Author: Ben Mezrich
Publisher: Free Press
Pub. in: September, 2003
ISBN: 0743249992
Pages: 272
Measurements: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00086
Other information: Reprint edition
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- Awards & Credential -
#1 National Bestseller (in North America), New York Times Bestseller ranking #622 in books on Amazon.com as of December 23, 2006. |
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- MSL Picks -
An overwhelmingly popular non-fiction book on Amazon.com, Bringing Down the House has received a collective 4-star rating from more than 340 reviews, which is definitely a major credential for a book on a niche topic: gambling tricks in Las Vegas.
This book has spurred TV specials and recieved many rave reviews. After getting sucked into one of the many TV specials talking about counting cards and beating Vegas I decided to look into the issue and this book, as I had heard, was the `one' to read. While reading the book I found that it was extremely hard to put down and that I essentially had goose bumps imagining the pure brilliance of these college kids.
The book is absolutely amazing, the story of 6 brilliant MIT students who are taught by a math professor how to count cards and pass these counts to other teammates unknown to security and other casino personnel. Counting the 312 cards included in the 6 deck shoe and getting an accurate count is unbelievable. The book goes into great detail explaining all of the members of the team. The reason a one man team would be impossible to pull off is because raising your bet after the cards got hot, and lowering the betting as the cards cooled off, would be seen as very suspicious to the dealer and you would be made known to security. Using an intricate team is how millions of dollars were made.
The first member of the team will start out at the table placing the minimum bet every single hand while counting cards (A high card, 9 -Ace, counts as -1, while a low card, 2-6, counts as +1. Thus a high count means that many low cards have been drawn out of the shoe leaving many high cards). This team member is generally dressed very modestly and doesn't draw too much attention to themselves. After the count gets `hot' this member will call in the big spender. The big spender is the gambler who attracts all the attention, wearing extravagant clothing and betting large sums of money on nearly every hand. After the big spender is seated the count must be passed, the most crucial part of the entire operation. The passing of the count has to be done without the two teammates acknowledging each other. Let's say that the count is +8, after a few hands of them both at the table the minimum better will leave the table making a comment to the dealer such as, "Well I think my luck is about up, I'm going to go hang out by the pool for a while." The word pool is not in reference to the casinos swimming pool but actually the game of pool in which the 8 ball is commonly associated. With that simple comment the teammates never look at each other while passing very vital information that is nearly undetectable to the dealer or the casinos high tech security equipment, pure brilliance.
The true art of counting cards is to count cards while being so animated, or seemingly uninterested in the cards that in seems to the untrained eye that you not actually counting cards. Although counting cards is not technically illegal it is not something that casinos permit. Games that are located in casinos are to the house advantage but once that advantage swings the way of the gamblers, the casino will do all that is in its powers to have that individual removed. Once a card counter is caught they are generally asked to leave the premises and are banned for life.
This book is something that is for everyone, a good way to pass time on a plane trip or a great book to read on vacation to get your blood pumping. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys reading thrillers, or books that show the underdog consistently beating the heavy favorite, because after all, how can you not root for the underdog?
(Partly from quoting Brian Bowen, USA)
Target readers:
Readers who like games, gambling, casinos, Las Vegas, Macau, or who enjoys fascinating non-fiction reading.
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Ben Mezrich graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991. Since then, he has published six novels with a combined printing of more than a million copies in nine languages (Threshold, Reaper, Fertile Ground, Skin, and under Holden Scott, Skeptic and The Carrier. His second novel, Reaper, was turned into TBS's premiere movie, Fatal Error, starring Antonio Sabato, Jr., and Robert Wagner. Bringing Down the House is his seventh book and his first foray into nonfiction.
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From Publisher
#1 National Bestseller!
The amazing inside story about a gambling ring of M.I.T.
students who beat the system in Vegas - and lived to tell how.
Robin Hood meets the Rat Pack when the best and the brightest of M.I.T.'s math students and engineers take up blackjack under the guidance of an eccentric mastermind. Their small blackjack club develops from an experiment in counting cards on M.I.T.'s campus into a ring of card savants with a system for playing large and winning big. In less than two years they take some of the world's most sophisticated casinos for more than three million dollars. But their success also brings with it the formidable ire of casino owners and launches them into the seedy underworld of corporate Vegas with its private investigators and other violent heavies.
Filled with tense action, high stakes, and incredibly close calls, Bringing Down the House is a nail-biting read that chronicles a real-life Ocean's Eleven. It's one story that Vegas does not want you to read.
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Chapter One
It was ten minutes past three in the morning, and Kevin Lewis looked like he was about to pass out. There were three empty martini glasses on the table in front of him, and he was leaning forward on both elbows, his gaze focused on his cards. The dealer was still feigning patience, in deference to the pile of purple chips in front of the martini glasses. But the other players were beginning to get restless. They wanted the kid to make his bet already - or pack it in, grab the ratty duffel bag under his chair, and head back to Boston. Hell, hadn't he won enough? What was a college senior going to do with thirty thousand dollars?
The dealer, sensing the mood at the table, finally tapped the blackjack shoe. "It's up to you, Kevin. You've had a hell of a run. Are you in for another round?"
Kevin tried to hide his trembling hands. Truth be told, his name wasn't really Kevin. And he wasn't even slightly drunk. The red splotches on his cheeks had been painted on in his hotel room. And though thirty thousand dollars in chips was enough to make his hands shake, it wasn't something that would impress the people who really knew him. They'd be much more interested in the ratty duffel bag beneath his chair.
Kevin breathed deeply, calming himself. He'd done this a hundred times, and there was no reason to think that tonight would be any different.
He reached for three five-hundred-dollar chips, then glanced around, pretending to look for the cocktail waitress. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his Spotter. Red-haired, pretty, wearing a low-cut blouse and too much makeup. Nobody would have guessed she was a former MIT mechanical-engineering major and an honors student at Harvard Business School. She was close enough to see the table but far enough away not to draw any suspicion. Kevin caught her gaze, then waited for her signal. A bent right arm would tell him to double his bet. Both arms folded and he'd push most of his chips into the betting circle. Arms flat at her sides and he'd drop down to the lowest possible bet.
But she didn't do any of these things. Instead, she ran her right hand through her hair.
Kevin stared at her, making sure he had read her right. Then he quickly started to gather his chips.
"That's it for me," he said to the table, slurring his words. "Should have skipped that last martini."
Inside, he was on fire. He glanced at his Spotter again. Her hand was still deep in her red hair. Christ. In six months, Kevin had never seen a Spotter do that before. The signal had nothing to do with the deck, nothing to do with the precise running count that had won him thirty thousand dollars in under an hour.
A hand in the hair meant only one thing. Get out. Get moving. Now.
Kevin slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and jammed the purple chips into his pockets.
The dealer was watching him carefully. "You sure you don't want me to color up?"
Maybe the man sensed that something wasn't right. Kevin was about to toss him a tip when he caught sight of the suits. Three of them, coming around the nearest craps table. Big, burly men with narrow eyes. No time for niceties.
"That's okay," Kevin said, backing away from the table. "I like the way they jiggle around in my pants."
He turned and darted through the casino. He knew they were watching him from above - the Eyes in the Sky. But he doubted they would make a scene. They were just trying to protect their money. Still, he didn't want to take any chances. If the suits caught up to him - well, everyone had heard the stories. Back rooms. Intimidation tactics. Sometimes even violence. No matter how many makeovers the town got, deep down, this was still Vegas.
Tonight Kevin was lucky. He made it outside without incident, blending into the ever-present flow of tourists on the brightly lit Strip. A minute later, he was sitting on a bench at a neon-drenched cabstand across the street. The duffel bag was on his lap.
The redhead from inside dropped onto the bench next to him, lighting herself a cigarette. Her hands were shaking. "That was too fucking close. They came straight out of the elevators. They must have been upstairs watching the whole time."
Kevin nodded. He was breathing hard. His chest was soaked in sweat. There was no better feeling in the world.
"Think we should quit for the night?" the girl asked.
Kevin smiled at her.
"Let's try the Stardust. My face is still good there."
He put both hands on the duffel bag, feeling the stacks of bills inside. A little over one million dollars, all in hundreds: Kevin's bankroll, partially financed by the shadowy investors who recruited him six months before. They had trained him in mock casinos set up in ratty apartments, abandoned warehouses, even MIT classrooms. Then they had set him loose on the neon Strip.
Most of his friends were back at school - taking tests, drinking beer, arguing about the Red Sox. He was in Las Vegas, living the high life on a million dollars of someone else's money. Sooner or later, it might all come crashing down. But Kevin didn't really care...
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| View all 14 comments |
Bill Simmons (ESPN The Magazine), USA
<2006-12-23 00:00>
This book made me want to gamble. Vegas! Vegas! |
Rocky Mountain News (Denver), USA
<2006-12-23 00:00>
A lively tale that could pass for thriller fiction…Mezrich’s skilled yet easy writing draws sweat to the reader’s brow. |
Publisher Weekly, USA
<2006-12-23 00:00>
"Shy, geeky, amiable" MIT grad Kevin Lewis, was, Mezrich learns at a party, living a double life winning huge sums of cash in Las Vegas casinos. In 1993 when Lewis was 20 years old and feeling aimless, he was invited to join the MIT Blackjack Team, organized by a former math instructor, who said, "Blackjack is beatable." Expanding on the "hi-lo" card-counting techniques popularized by Edward Thorp in his 1962 book, Beat the Dealer, the MIT group's more advanced team strategies were legal, yet frowned upon by casinos. Backed by anonymous investors, team members checked into Vegas hotels under assumed names and, pretending not to know each other, communicated in the casinos with gestures and card-count code words. Taking advantage of the statistical nature of blackjack, the team raked in millions before casinos caught on and pursued them. In his first nonfiction foray, novelist Mezrich (Reaper, etc.), telling the tale primarily from Kevin's point of view, manages to milk that threat for a degree of suspense. But the tension is undercut by the first-draft feel of his pedestrian prose, alternating between irrelevant details and heightened melodrama. In a closing essay, Lewis details the intricacies of card counting. |
Eberz, USA
<2006-12-23 00:00>
It seems that every one holds out for the one possibility to make their millions. And perhaps it is just a matter of how far we will go to get them. Bringing Down the House is the story of men and women who are smart enough to earn their millions, and in a way they do. They refine a method of card counting that is the key to open the vault of the casinos around the world.
What is interesting about Bringing Down the House is once they have a taste of what is possible the greed takes over. It becomes more than a weekend excursion. The money takes over. The risks they are willing to take for the money become greater. Even when their lives are clearly in danger many in the group choose to press on.
Brining Down the House traces the path of greed in their lives. It is helpful and enlightening in ones own life. How much will you sacrifice for money? Your family, reputation, character, loves and safety. And in the end what will you have to show for it. A fast and interesting read. A definite suggested book. |
View all 14 comments |
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