Book Review - Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich
Category Book Review Ben Mezrich Bringing Down The House
After seeing the previews for the movie "21", I remembered that there really was a group of students from MIT who took blackjack card-counting to a whole new level in casinos. To get the non-Hollywood version of the story before seeing the movie, I grabbed Bringing Down The House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich. It's a fascinating look into how the MIT team formed, made millions, and subsequently got barred from nearly every casino in the industry.
Mezrich is a reporter who was given the chance to interview one of the main players, Kevin Lewis. Lewis was recruited into the group in 1994, and quickly rose up to be one of the "Big Players" of the team, one who could put on a character, step into a hot table, and make tens of thousands of dollars on a single hand. These weekend raids on casinos continued for the next four years, earning each of the participants an incredible return on their "investments". Couple that with the fact that the casinos treated them as whales (high rollers), and they were living a life that one could only dream of. Comped rooms, shows, travel, parties, etc... But things started going sour in 1998. The team was showing some major dysfunctional behavior, and a rival team (also from MIT) was threatening the secrecy of the routine. What started as a minor barring from one casino quickly (and violently) spread to nearly every other casino in Vegas. What really surprised them was the speed at which other casinos outside of Vegas (and even the US) knew about them and shut them down. Lewis decided at that point that his life was more important than the money, and left it all behind. The only question that remains is who or what tipped off casino security.
Mezrich wrote the book in 2002, so it doesn't necessarily dig deeply into the recent world of casino security. The security technology has only gotten more high-tech since then, and I'm sure that story would be just as interesting as the card-counting story. I was riveted by how Lewis and his team could execute their operation with so much precision, while at the same time having the casinos spend a ton of money to keep them coming back. But greed often destroys everything it touches, and this is no exception. Lewis wanted to be much more low-key when the heat started. But he was overruled by the head of the team, and that decision nearly got some of them killed.
In the fast moving world of scams, casinos, and technology, it's amazing that people could get away with this much over such a long time. It makes you wonder what other scams and attacks are occurring these days. Bringing Down The House is a good look at one way it was done successfully. But it almost begs for a follow-up to reexamine the state of casino security six years after the original story ended.
After seeing the previews for the movie "21", I remembered that there really was a group of students from MIT who took blackjack card-counting to a whole new level in casinos. To get the non-Hollywood version of the story before seeing the movie, I grabbed Bringing Down The House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich. It's a fascinating look into how the MIT team formed, made millions, and subsequently got barred from nearly every casino in the industry.
Mezrich is a reporter who was given the chance to interview one of the main players, Kevin Lewis. Lewis was recruited into the group in 1994, and quickly rose up to be one of the "Big Players" of the team, one who could put on a character, step into a hot table, and make tens of thousands of dollars on a single hand. These weekend raids on casinos continued for the next four years, earning each of the participants an incredible return on their "investments". Couple that with the fact that the casinos treated them as whales (high rollers), and they were living a life that one could only dream of. Comped rooms, shows, travel, parties, etc... But things started going sour in 1998. The team was showing some major dysfunctional behavior, and a rival team (also from MIT) was threatening the secrecy of the routine. What started as a minor barring from one casino quickly (and violently) spread to nearly every other casino in Vegas. What really surprised them was the speed at which other casinos outside of Vegas (and even the US) knew about them and shut them down. Lewis decided at that point that his life was more important than the money, and left it all behind. The only question that remains is who or what tipped off casino security.
Mezrich wrote the book in 2002, so it doesn't necessarily dig deeply into the recent world of casino security. The security technology has only gotten more high-tech since then, and I'm sure that story would be just as interesting as the card-counting story. I was riveted by how Lewis and his team could execute their operation with so much precision, while at the same time having the casinos spend a ton of money to keep them coming back. But greed often destroys everything it touches, and this is no exception. Lewis wanted to be much more low-key when the heat started. But he was overruled by the head of the team, and that decision nearly got some of them killed.
In the fast moving world of scams, casinos, and technology, it's amazing that people could get away with this much over such a long time. It makes you wonder what other scams and attacks are occurring these days. Bringing Down The House is a good look at one way it was done successfully. But it almost begs for a follow-up to reexamine the state of casino security six years after the original story ended.
| Permalink |
Comments
Posted by Curt Stone At 08:01:56 On 22/05/2008 | - Website - |