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

Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
by Ben Mezrich

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Book Summary Information

Author: Ben Mezrich
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-09-09
ISBN: 0743249992
Number of pages: 257
Publisher: Free Press
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Book Reviews of Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions

Book Review: David:Goliath::College Whiz's:Vegas. How can you not root for the underdog?
Summary: 5 Stars

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?

Brian Bowen

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Summary of Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions

#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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