21: Bringing Down the House Movie Tie-In: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions

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21: Bringing Down the House Movie Tie-In: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions

by Ben Mezrich

3.76 · rating details · 9,556 ratings · 1,262 reviews

In the midst of the Go-Go 90s, the culture of greed infused the MIT campus. A small blackjack club sprang up, dedicated to counting cards and beating the house at major casinos around the country. The Club grew slowly at first, but by the late 1990s, the right people had come up with the right system to take some of the world's most sophisticated casinos for all they were ...more

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Published January 29th 2008 by Simon & Schuster Audio (first published January 1st 2002)

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Dec 30, 2011

Petra X rated it

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Shelves: 2011, biography-true-story, x

Casinos deserve whatever anyone can get from them. Card-counting is using your noodle, it is by no means a criminal activity, yet the casinos which say that gambling is a good sport we should all enjoy, don't act like good sports when others are enjoying winning (regularly). Nope, they then act like very bad sports indeed by getting these winners banned from each and every casino in the world.

Gambling in general and casinos in particular were very much in the grip of the Mafia until t...moreCasinos deserve whatever anyone can get from them. Card-counting is using your noodle, it is by no means a criminal activity, yet the casinos which say that gambling is a good sport we should all enjoy, don't act like good sports when others are enjoying winning (regularly). Nope, they then act like very bad sports indeed by getting these winners banned from each and every casino in the world.

Gambling in general and casinos in particular were very much in the grip of the Mafia until times not so long gone by. They might as well still be with their ways of ensuring that only they can win the big pot. They employ teams of people to spot the winners. No matter how many different casinos in any country in the world these winners are playing in, they will be identified, their descriptions circulated and eventually they will be stopped. Maybe they will merely be banned, first by one casino and then the next (sometimes before they can cash in their last-won chips), or maybe they will be taken into the 'back room' and various intimidating tactics used. This is legal. This is not the Mafia, this is not organised crime, it's organised gambling defending its right to make sure that only people who lose or at least don't win big bucks too often are allowed to play.

The M.I.T. students were all members of a professional gambling ring set up as a business. It was financed by investors, used computer programs to identify the most propitious card sequences and professors who coached the students who did the actually 'grunt work' (flying to exotic locations, staying in luxurious suites and gambling with the investors money) and who were paid a salary and commission. All they did was count the cards that had been dealt in Blackjack and then when it seemed the sequences were on their side, place a big bet. This is completely legal, there is not even a whiff of card-sharping or cheating, and what's more it isn't an infallible science, they might have won in the millions, but they lost more than a million too.

What the hell is wrong with that?

It seems to me that the casinos are bad sports. They only want losers and people who come on the occasional big weekend to see a Star Performer and win big so they can tell all their friends that they must come to Vegas and have a Good Time and Win Big. If you are a real winner, they will hunt you down and ban you. It's only for fun you see, you must only play for fun, just the luck of the draw and not win too much too often, it can't be a business, nor a career, nor a way to make money, nope, only the casinos are allowed to take gambling that seriously.

What is the difference between this slick and sleazy modus operandi and the Mafia? No concrete overcoats (I hope) is one? I can't really think of another.

Recommended for those who think that playing fair ought to be multi-lateral, not enforced uni-laterally by those who think it is only a slogan.(less)

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Apr 11, 2008

Brian rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I disliked Bringing Down the House, and can't understand why everyone I know who's read it has raved about it.

I'll grant that it's an interesting story. But you know what? It's a sufficiently interesting story that it doesn't need to be sexed up with outright bullshit. Even accounting for the fact that the characters in the book are composites of several actual people, probably 25% of what's left is just pure fiction. He's got one scene where one of the team is beaten up in a bathroo...moreI disliked Bringing Down the House, and can't understand why everyone I know who's read it has raved about it.

I'll grant that it's an interesting story. But you know what? It's a sufficiently interesting story that it doesn't need to be sexed up with outright bullshit. Even accounting for the fact that the characters in the book are composites of several actual people, probably 25% of what's left is just pure fiction. He's got one scene where one of the team is beaten up in a bathroom in a Bahamanian casino. It never happened. He's got the principal character taking his final blackjack exam in an underground casino in Chinatown. Never happened. He details one of the team having his apartment broken into, and a safe with $75,000 in it pried out of the wall and stolen. Never. Happened.

This *weakens my interest*. One of the potentially interesting things about this story is how the modern, corporate Vegas would respond to an organized ring of counters. This book doesn't tell you that, because it's so full of bullshit you can't trust anything it has to say on the topic.

And, oh lord, is the dialogue horrible. Hollywood does this a lot: Character A explains something to Character B, but he's really not explaining it to Character B, he's explaining it to the audience. Done properly, this is okay; you don't notice it, it flows, and it tells the audience what's going on without condescending to them. Done improperly, it's annoying as fuck; the worst parts of Casino Royale were the bits with the twit in the casino explaining how poker works to the presumably incredibly competent agent sent by the British government to keep an eye on the money.

Virtually every piece of dialogue in this book is like that. And there's no excuse for it in a book; characters don't have to pretend to explain something to someone who already understands it just to inform the reader, because the fucking narrator can just explain that thing to the reader directly. It's not just annoying, it's lazy, bad writing.

Mezrich explains why he's a lazy, bad writer:

I'm not looking to use big words," Mezrich admits. "I write for people who if they weren't reading my book, they wouldn't be reading another book. They would be watching TV. I'm not competing with other books. I'm competing with the Red Sox." Mezrich works hard to build the excitement early in his plots, before attention spans wane. He gets right to it in Rigged, explaining in the first few pages the main character's involvement with the shady world of the New York Mercantile Exchange: "If Wall Street was the financial equivalent of Vegas, the Merc was Atlantic City—on crack.

This book is crap - on crack. And it's a shame, because there's an interesting true story under all the dross.

You want a good book to read, on a similar subject? Go buy The Eudaemonic Pie. It's about a bunch of grad students from UC Santa Cruz who, in the 70s, designed and built wearable computers intended to let them beat the house at roulette. And it's good. It's also not tarted up.(less)

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Apr 13, 2011

Greg rated it

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Shelves: books-about-stuff, viva-las-vegas

Apparently this book is bullshit. Oh well. I was the sucker who shut off my critical tools when reading it and swallowed this hook-line-and-sinker. I should have known something was wrong when the geography of the Strip was fucked up in his mini-history of the rise of the mega-casinos. He placed Excalibur halfway down the Strip from Luxor (or was it MGM Grand), which is all wrong, they are right across the street from one another (which works out for either Luxor or MGM in relation to Excali...moreApparently this book is bullshit. Oh well. I was the sucker who shut off my critical tools when reading it and swallowed this hook-line-and-sinker. I should have known something was wrong when the geography of the Strip was fucked up in his mini-history of the rise of the mega-casinos. He placed Excalibur halfway down the Strip from Luxor (or was it MGM Grand), which is all wrong, they are right across the street from one another (which works out for either Luxor or MGM in relation to Excalibur), half way down the Strip from Luxor would be like the Bellagio or one of those casinos. I just thought he was taking some liberties, which he was, I mean it's not like it's difficult to tell the casinos apart just by looking at them.

So, when I was looking to see what other goodreaders thought of the book I found out that big parts of the book were fabricated. And like a good skeptic I googled and found out that apparently yes, Ben Mezrich liked to embellish. The only problem is that his embellishments are usually the exciting and more dramatic moments in the book. Opps.

Some goodreaders pointed out the awful dialogue. I guess that was there too, but honestly it gave the whole thing a very Vegas feel to me, there is something tin-eared, gaudy, and unreal about all of Vegas and I just kind of fit in the bad chatter to being expected from a story that mainly takes place where LA douche-bags mingle around with Cowboys and men wearing very unacceptable amounts of jewelry.

Oh, and to return to the first paragraph, I should have also been a little more skeptical when the author would forget to mention which casino they were in when say security guards kicked in the door and told them to leave. Why would you not give some info like that, especially when most of the book reads like a travel guide dropping names of places.

Oh well. It was a distracting and entertaining read and much much better than the pretty unremarkable movie the book inspired. I think I ended up enjoying this book more than I should have because it got me thinking about Vegas and thinking that I would like to go back there again soon, even if it is for my non-debauch enjoyment of slot machines with animal themes and delicious buffets. (less)

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Aug 22, 2008

Rachel marked it as abandoned · review of another edition

Recommended to Rachel by: 21 movie credits

When he saw that I'd earmarked this book as one I'd like to read, my friend John offered to lend me his copy. It turned out, however, that he only owns a different book by the same author. That book, Busting Vegas, is the inside story of five MIT students who took Vegas for millions (although the long-winded official subtitle for that one bills it as "A True Story of Monumental Excess, Sex, Love, Violence, and Beating the Odds.").

My interest in the subject (blackjack) and ...more

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May 08, 2008

Brian Hodges rated it

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Shelves: non-fiction, better-than-the-movie

Let me say this first: read the book. SCREW THE MOVIE!

I picked up this book because the trailers for the movie "21" (based on the book) intrigued me. I'm no speed reader but i finished this thing in two reading sessions less than 24 hours after getting it from the library. It's the TRUE story (as the title indicates) of a bunch of MIT students, brilliant with numbers, who work out a sophisticated card-counting scheme that they use to win millions of dollars from various casi...moreLet me say this first: read the book. SCREW THE MOVIE!

I picked up this book because the trailers for the movie "21" (based on the book) intrigued me. I'm no speed reader but i finished this thing in two reading sessions less than 24 hours after getting it from the library. It's the TRUE story (as the title indicates) of a bunch of MIT students, brilliant with numbers, who work out a sophisticated card-counting scheme that they use to win millions of dollars from various casinos over the course of a couple of years. This book was such a fast, easy and satisfying read (how often do all three of those adjectives apply to one book), and if you're a fan of Clooney's OCEAN'S 11, you'll love it.

In addition to giving a really gripping account of how these ballsy little geeks managed to get past the Vegas system (Think the Rain Main blackjack sequence times about 10), the author also gives some really cool backstory into the history of "old" Vegas and "new" Vegas (the security, the mob, the corporations, the back rooms, the strippers, the private investigation firms) in order to show you what these guys were truly up against. As you read, you can't help but be swept up in the tense, nail-biting "what-a-rideness" of the story. You also can't help but keep thinking, "hey, maybe I should try this." Fortunately for you, me and everyone who reads, the author also does a good job of showing you that trying what these guys tried really just isn't worth it. These guys were math GENIUSES and they still couldn't slip past the system forever.

The book isn't perfect. The author frequently inserts HIMSELF into the story via these "side chapters" where he interviews people from the main character's life and they seem rather out of place (the chapters that is). Still, all in all, a fun and fascinating book that reads in no time at all.

The movie version really missed the boat here. The story as told in the book is so damn cool and multi-dimensional yet unfolds in "movie time". The filmmakers threw all that out the window and turned every character, scene and even Vegas itself into a one-dimensional snore.(less)

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Jun 28, 2008

Toby rated it

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"Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions" by Ben Mezrich is a nonfiction work that takes a look at a group of MIT graduates and dropouts who develop and perfect a card counting system, which they use to great effect. Specifically, the book concerns Kevin Miller, who is apparently Asian despite the inventive pseudonym, and his involvement with the team of MIT card counters.

As I read this book, I kept flipping back to the f...more

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Jul 06, 2008

Tracy rated it

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Shelves: non-fiction, own-it

This bood reads like a suspense novel- an easy read, that I finished in one sitting. I have to admit, I was riveted, although the writing itself leaves something to be desired.
My husband's aunt used to be a dealer in Atlantic City so I've heard a lot of stories from her, but this book really opened my eyes to the gambling industry. The book made me NOT want to gamble and pretty much squelched what miniscule desire I had to visit Vegas anyway.
I could see how easily one could get cau...more

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Jan 13, 2009

Suzanne rated it

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Shelves: nonfiction, new-england

I really resent it when an author states that their work is one of nonfiction, when it isn't. Apparently Mezrich wrote this story based on his meetings with some members of the MIT Blackjack teams. "Bringing Down the House" is a fictional work inspired by real life events. The character's names have been changed and many of the individual characters Medrich writes about, are actually composites of several people. There are places described that don't exist (underground casino in C...more

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Mar 08, 2008

Scott Hoverman rated it

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Ah, Blackjack and the flashy, magnetic draw of America's Playground. Why do we foolishly appease Vegas, allowing it to offer it's tantalizing promises like a carrot dangling in front of a rabbit? A part of us likes to think we can GET the carrot; And it's that part of us that keeps us coming back like lemmings. Well in this story, the rabbit got the carrot. And then some.

An extremely fast & entertaining read, this book sweeps you through the highs and lows of what it feels like to te...more

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Apr 28, 2008

Madeline rated it

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Recommends it for: nobody

Recommended to Madeline by: nobody

i didn't hate it. but it was definitely nothing special.

here's some examples of the ridiculous writing:

"Vegas was a juicy oyster, and Kevin was going to suck the motherfucker dry"

"He leaned back, kicked his feet up onto the table -- right on the goddamn felt -- and waited for them to pay him off. He knew he looked like the most arrogant prick in the world, but he didn't care. Hubris had no place in a card counter's vocabulary. Barry Chow was ki...more

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Aug 12, 2009

K.D. rated it

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I like the fact that this is really happened. That the protagonist name is really Jeffrey Ma and he agreed to surface 7 years after the book was originally published. The story is astonishing: imagine an MIT grad raking millions of pesos by card counting in Las Vegas. Talking about using one's brain to circumvent the old, old game of blackjack!

I saw the movie in a cheap DVD copy from St. Francis and I liked it. The book version is tamed which is expected because it is based on actual...more

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Apr 12, 2008

MJ rated it

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Recommends it for: anyone who wants to try and beat the casinos at their own game

Recommended to MJ by: Ultimate reading guide

Shelves: liked-it, true-crime, idiots-ultimate-reading

I have wanted to read this book for awhile especially after living in Las Vegas and since the movie based on the book just came out I decided now was the time to read it.

Kevin Lewis was your average MIT student until one day when 2 friends took him to Atlantic City and introduced him to the art of card counting. Counting cards is not illegal but the casinos do not like it when you do it. Especially if you are winning. Taken under the wing of Micky, Kevin learns the ins and outs ...more

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Apr 07, 2008

Clackamas rated it

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Shelves: memoirs-bio-and-autobio, games

This was a fun, quick read. It's hard to believe it's true. The story felt a lot like the Clooney Ocean's Eleven movies, only without quite so much humor.

The MIT guys had a pretty intricate system worked out for beating the casinos as Blackjack. It was funny to see how the system had to evolve as these young people became old in the world of card counting. They needed to figure out how to be able to keep playing even though casinos were starting to recognize them. Ultimately, their ...more

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Apr 07, 2008

Crysti rated it

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Oh my gosh...I am loving this book. I can't wait to get home and read it every night. I will probally finish it tonight or this weekend.
I so want to beat Vegas...but I am not smart like these guys!
So I just finished reading this last night...and was very happy to see that at the end of the book they update you to present day in 2007 about the people in the book.
It was really good, very fast reading and I loved all the ways the author brought you in and made you feel like you w...more

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Feb 27, 2008

Emily G added it · review of another edition

The writing can be kind of clunky at times and prone to "Explain blackjack for me, a rank gambling novice much like the average reader of this book," asked Kevin. "Well," Martinez smiled, "It works like this..." type exposition, which always gets on my nerves.

BUT the story is true and that's exciting enough to carry the writing, which is certainly not all bad. And you get to see what nerds in college would do given hundreds of thousands of dollars (hint:...more

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Feb 06, 2012

Ensiform rated it

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Shelves: non-fiction, gaming

The story of Kevin Lewis and some other MIT kids of Asian descent, who were hand-picked by a former MIT prof to count cards in Vegas. Backed by “shady investors” that they supposedly never met, the team used a decades-old method of card counting (a modified version of “hi-lo,” based on the number of high cards left in the deck) and some interesting hand signals to collectively rake in the millions.

This is Mezrich’s first non-fiction book, and it shows; oh does it ever show. There is ...more

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Dec 01, 2011

Ed Smiley rated it

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Strange but true, apparently.

For those who are unfamiliar with this story:
Teams of MIT students with mathematical aptitude were recruited by a professor to play blackjack at casinos. Now blackjack is the only casino game that has a memory of previous play, because it uses a number of decks shuffled together straight through. Therefore, the percentage of cards favorable to the player can be estimated based on tracking the type of cards that have been in play since the last shuffle. A simple ...more

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Jul 25, 2011

Wendy rated it

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Now a movie titled: "21"

"Shy, geeky, amiable Kevin Lewis had led a double life for more than four years. Now I was going to tell his story," writes author Ben Mezrich, as he proceeds to tell the story of the MIT students who made literally millions at Blackjack with their amazing card counting system. The MIT students were mostly honor students and great mathematicians. "But Kevin's resume didn't tell the whole story. There was another side to his life, one wri...moreNow a movie titled: "21"

"Shy, geeky, amiable Kevin Lewis had led a double life for more than four years. Now I was going to tell his story," writes author Ben Mezrich, as he proceeds to tell the story of the MIT students who made literally millions at Blackjack with their amazing card counting system. The MIT students were mostly honor students and great mathematicians. "But Kevin's resume didn't tell the whole story. There was another side to his life, one written in neon signs and purple casino chips." In 1993, Kevin was recruited by a friend. "Kevin, this is the MIT Blackjack Team. It's been around - in one form or another - for almost two decades. Recently, we've taken things to a whole new level. And we want to invite you to come aboard." "We're going to hit Vegas." Naturally Kevin was skeptical at first.

"So you guys cheat at cards?"

"Absolutely not. We don't alter any of the rules or mess with the nature of the game. We use our brains to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities. Blackjack is beatable - so we beat it. We beat the heck out of it."

Over the next four years, this MIT Blackjack Team made their way through Chicago, Louisiana but mostly the bigger casinos of Las Vegas, aptly known as "Sin City." They brought aliases, disguises, plenty of cash, and, more importantly, their winning system, which included secret gestures and code words. They fully understood the statistical nature of Blackjack and took full advantage of it. But, as always, there's a lesson to be learned. "The most important decision a card counter ever has to make is the decision to walk away."

Exhilarated right from page one. I enjoyed the intensity of the game, the outrageously high stakes and the excitement of the casino world. I was taken to places I've been before (and reliving the experience) and places I've only heard about. Much of the excitement came from knowing that, although this reads like a fiction novel, it isn't. This is Ben Mezrich's seventh novel, but his first non-fiction.(less)

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Jun 25, 2011

Rebecca rated it

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This is the book that that movie "21" was based on last year. I sort of wanted to see it, but of course, didn't. It looks like one of those Saturday Afternoon on TNT type movies I'll watch in like 3 years. Anyway, when I saw the book on the free shelf, of course, I had to grab it.

Yeah, wasn't as good as I thought it would be! Just something seemed to be missing from it, I think. Or maybe that was sort of the point. Like, this kid from MIT gets invited to join poker games and ...more

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Feb 09, 2011

Katie Paulson rated it

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Bringing Down The House was an exciting, suspenseful read, but it was hampered by the knowledge (I had) that it wasn't completely accurate. I've always been interested in blackjack and card counting - my father's a gaming statistics professor and I've been to Vegas more times than someone who's not 21 should - so I thought I'd give it a try. Even without the stain of the movie, it's a bit unbelievable, enough to where you might go look it up on your own without anyone telling you parts of the ...more

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Jun 10, 2010

Roy rated it

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Recommends it for: gamblers, college students

Nerds IV: Nerds take down Sin City.

One of the tantalizing aspects of this story is that it tells of smart engineering / math majors living like high rollers; Boston partying in Las Vegas. Kevin, and the rest of the M. I. T. blackjack team live double lives as weekend gambling gods. This would be considered escapist fantasy if it were not non-fiction. The events in this book are clear and engaging, and tell a tale worth remembering. Mezrich follows his main character, Kevin into the ...more

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Mar 25, 2010

Judy rated it

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Am I the only one who has a fantasy of beating the odds in Vegas and coming home with chips and money stuffed in my pockets? Well, I'm probably the only one whose has a daughter who became so concerned with my behavior at the slot machines the last time I was near them that she kept encouraging me to, "Let's just sit here for a minute and look at the people gambling." That was a cry for her mother to get control if I've ever heard one. So what happened? She got two rolls of nickels...more

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Jul 20, 2009

Lisabl Betts-Lacroix added it · review of another edition

I picked up this book for $2 at Goodwill during a recent stay-at-home vacation. No mind-or-life-expanding piece of work here, it was, nevertheless, an engaging visit to another world. This is the true story of a team of M.I.T. math geeks who discover team card-counting and the high-rolling lifestyle that goes with winning legal casino money. While the author’s journalistic principles have been called into question and he has been accused of exaggerating the details to an enormous extent, he f...more

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Jul 18, 2009

Robin Branson rated it

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Terrific read! Compelling, intriguing, this one captures the sweeping wonder of Vegas, and leaves room for a fascinating true story about card-counting. The protagonist, Kevin Lewis, an MIT alumnus, becomes heavily involved in a group of math whiz-kids who've devised (with the help of a savvy former professor) a virtually fool-proof method for beating Las Vegas blackjack at its own game.

The fun of this book is that it makes you think, if only for a minute, that you might be able to do ...more

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Jul 13, 2009

Terry rated it

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The subtitle of Bringing Down the House tells the whole story behind the book: it is “the Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions.” It is a true account of some MIT students (some still enrolled while others had dropped out) who were recruited as part of a blackjack team that worked together to count cards and beat the major casinos at their own game. They flew to Las Vegas on weekends with hundreds of thousands of dollars strapped to their bodies and played blackjack...more

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Jan 25, 2012

Maura rated it

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Shelves: non-fic

definitely interesting. my prim moralistic bent made it hard to enjoy, since the primary motivating factor of everyone in the book is greed, and i find it hard to have a whole lot of sympathy for that, especially when the central character is busily trying to protest that no, really, it's not about the money at all... and then turns around and goes gonzo over the amount of $$$ he's raking in.

i guess i'd say it's worth skimming. i sorta wish i'd put it down halfway thru tho.

...more

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Jun 21, 2010

Greg Pettit rated it

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Recommends it for: Blackjack fans

Shelves: non-fiction

A very quick and very entertaining read about genius card counters in Las Vegas.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit, although I found the narrative style pretty annoying. I was really interested in the subject matter, but the story-telling seemed over-the-top and specifically designed to sell a screenplay (which it did-- 21). It was full of simple words and sentences, purple prose, and weird colorful metaphors, like "His mother was from Singapore, his father from Cuba. You needed a ...more

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Jun 01, 2011

Tyler rated it

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"21:Bringing Down The House" by Ben Mezrich is a story of many highs and lows of a group of students and a professor from MIT that hit the gold in Vegas. The story began in an intense situation. "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...more"21:Bringing Down The House" by Ben Mezrich is a story of many highs and lows of a group of students and a professor from MIT that hit the gold in Vegas. The story began in an intense situation. "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" (2). In this statement, Mezrich described the situation of card counter Kevin Lewis and what was running through his mind within mere seconds. Noticeably, Mezrich used a capital "S" when spelling Spotter to lay down the importance of a spotter immediately. A spotter's job is to "find a good table with a hot deck, then call in either a Gorilla or Big Player" (45). If they don't do their job right, "Sooner or later, they end up getting caught" (45).

Towards the middle of the story, Mezrich began to nudge in each complex character one by one, setting each chapter up with a focus on specific gamblers on the team that would end up taking the infamous Micky Rosa down. "She was wearing a tight black leather miniskirt and high-heeled shoes...Her body was sharp like her jaw, more corners than curves, and her thin frame couldn't have weighed more than ninety pounds. But the look in her blue eyes was a warning: Don't judge a girl by the length of her skirt or the color of her hair. This bitch will rip you to shreds" (121). This was a description of Jill, a friend of Lewis' while he went Harvard. From the looks of her, most people would never know, "That she graduated with honors from MIT undergrad and Harvard Business School, and lived by herself in a million-dollar town house in Hartford, Connecticut" (122). "Andrew Tay was absurdly tall for a card counter. At six-five, he towered over everyone else at the table, and if he back-spotted his way into a shoe, he almost had to squint to see the cards" (128). This is another example of the way Mezrich organized his book; themed each chapter with a specific character's point of view. This chapter happened to be 16; July 1995 to October 1995 for Andrew Tay.

After the very confusing and random flashbacks from present to past and back again, towards the end of the book is when the story really starts to fall apart. "A small-scale assault on the Bahamas had seemed like good middle ground" (222). Here, Lewis and his gang of card counters planned on hitting it big in the Bahamas with their unit, and from there they go back and forth from casino to casino. This to me displayed a lack of organization because each chapter seems like a random piece of someone else's story. Then, at the very end, you find out the point to the story. "Sometimes I think about what it would be like to start again. It's different now. You saw how quickly they reacted. you have to be a lot more careful. And a hell of a lot smarter. Most important, you've go to recruit people you can trust...I've got the clothes, if you're asking. Kevin smiled. First there's this test you've got to take..." (251.) Clearly, Lewis's test he was referring to was one that dealt with getting in to card carding, just like how he was introduced to it in the beginning of the story. So essentially, this book goes on a lot using indirect references from many card counters about how they want to quit, but in the end they just want to play more and win more. What a great story.

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Dec 01, 2011

Stevecrandell rated it

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Shelves: action, games, grades-10-and-up

There’s lots of fast-paced excitement and fear in this marginally real-life thriller. It reads like a crime novel, with brilliant gambling schemes to keep just seconds ahead of the take-no-prisoner casino thugs. The main players are a great mix: there’s a healthy dose of lies and back-stabbing to keep the plot moving. And plenty of seedy Vegas backstory – the waves of alcohol and profanity and topless women left me feeling swamped.

Too much to be true, in fact. It took me until the f...more

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Apr 20, 2011

Sheehan rated it

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You can kind of tell straightaway that the author is more at home in fiction than in non-fiction as the whole book is written as though it was a novelization of historical events. Which could have been cool if he has spent the time to really research the topic even more fully and provide more of the details which I was constantly wanting when asking myself: How did they get fake IDs? How come they were able to get comp'd but under false pretense, how is it the casinos we're checking up on the...more

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About Ben Mezrich

Ben Mezrich is an American author from Boston, Massachusetts, who started out writing fiction but now has made his foray into non-fiction. He graduated magna-cum-laude from Harvard in 1991. He has since published eight books which have together sold over a million copies in nine different languages. Some of his books have been written under the pseudonym Holden Scott.

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Books by Ben Mezrich

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Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History

Ugly Americans: The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions

Busting Vegas: A True Story of Monumental Excess, Sex, Love, Violence, and Beating the Odds

Rigged: The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil, from Wall Street to Dubai

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title link	preview: 21: Bringing Down the House Movie Tie-In: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
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