Bringing Down the House: How Six Students Took Vegas for Millions

Registered by JonAzrael of Plano, Texas USA on 6/4/2004
Buy from one of these Booksellers:
Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon DE | Amazon FR | Amazon IT | Bol.com
4 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by JonAzrael from Plano, Texas USA on Friday, June 4, 2004
Bringing Down The House tells the story of "Kevin Lewis" and his team of MIT students, and, as the title implies, how they beat the casinos in Las Vegas at their own game throughout the mid-90's, using a modified version of a hi-lo card counting system first introduced by MIT professor Edward Thorp in 1962. His lifestyle goes from geeky MIT student to Vegas high-roller with all the comps, money and women that that implies.

Mezrich is clearly not completely at home with non-fiction as he writes purely from Kevin's viewpoint but in a third person style. In some ways this makes it a better read - as the students' system is theoretically very easy to understand, although requires a lot of skill to actually put into play, the story almost seems unreal at times and Mezrich's style then helps make it seem like a fast-paced piece of fiction.

It also helps in that, while still delving into the theory behind the system and how the casinos worked back then (and how they've improved their security in an attempt to stop what Lewis and his friends pulled off), he prefers to stick to more to characterization and telling the story, particularly when their actions start to get them in trouble.

A great light read, and one I'm sure we'll see fleshed out into a movie before too long.

Journal Entry 2 by JonAzrael from Plano, Texas USA on Friday, July 9, 2004
Starting a short bookray for this. Shipping order as follows

1. Geegal (Germany)
2. LaughAtlantis (MA)
3. GraceTX (TX)

Journal Entry 3 by JonAzrael at on Monday, July 12, 2004
Released on Monday, July 12, 2004 at n/a in n/a, Sent to another BookCrosser Controlled Releases.

Starting it's journey to Geegal in Germany. Hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!

Journal Entry 4 by Geegal on Wednesday, July 21, 2004
What a fun book to read. I was hooked from the beginning. I like stories about casinos in general. I am not a big gambler myslef but I like watching others play. Ben Merzich captured that casino atmosphere pretty well. Also following Kevin Lewis' story never got boring.
I did find, however, that Ben Merich could have skipped a couple of gambling scenes to shorten the book a little bit. I am also certain that there is probably going to be a movie.

Released on Friday, July 23, 2004 at Bookray in Bookray, A Bookray Controlled Releases.

Journal Entry 6 by LaughAtlantis on Saturday, July 31, 2004
Received on Thursday - will journal once I've read.
Thanks! I'm looking forward to reading this.

Journal Entry 7 by LaughAtlantis on Wednesday, September 1, 2004
Sorry this took so long for me to get to. I enjoyed this, but it didn't knock me over. The book itself was oddly structured, with part of it being Kevin's third-person experience and another being the author's first-person account of trying the card-counting biz himself.

The book does give a great sense of how unnerving the whole experience must be - the subterfuge involved and the build-up of nerves. It also opened up my mind to just how incredibly hard it is to do this without paying a bazillion dollars in taxes or being suspected of money laundering.

All in all, I felt the book had a very interesting topic that was somewhat clumsily addressed.

I will contact GraceTX to send this along.

Journal Entry 8 by LaughAtlantis at -- Controlled Release in Boston, Massachusetts USA on Monday, October 25, 2004
Released on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 at about 12:00:00 PM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at Postal release in Boston, Massachusetts USA.

RELEASE NOTES:

I am finally releasing this today! Sorry it took so long to get it out of my house.

Journal Entry 9 by GraceTX from Plano, Texas USA on Saturday, November 6, 2004
Received this today. I won't get to read it for a couple of weeks or so, but seeing as I'm the last person on the ray, I hope that shouldn't be a problem.

Are you sure you want to delete this item? It cannot be undone.