Busting Vegas by Ben Mezrich

The full title is Busting Vegas: The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees. This is a true story that reads like a thriller. My heartbeat increased and I was on the edge of my chair for the minor cliffhangers. It seems fantastic and realistic at the same time.

Busting Vegas is not the first book by Mezrich written about MIT to kids taking on casinos black jack tables. Bringing Down the House which is another book on the subject has been made into an upcoming movie called “21.” While we are on the subject, Busting Vegas is not the only book by Mezrich about Ivy League kids. Ugly Americans is another book on my list.

“Make money playing blackjack” is all it took. The story focuses around Semyon Dukach who was a MIT student. He comes from a poor background as a Russian Jewish immigrant. Semyon finds this flier on campus; “Make money playing blackjack.” The flier said to attend a meeting. It is lead by a guy named Victor (maybe not his real name). Victors makes teams of students. They go to Indian Casinos and practice Victor’s methods for beating the house. Victor then takes those who he thinks would be the best at taking on high stakes gambling and puts them into an elite team. Once the new team is assembled he teaches them the Three Techniques. These techniques are quasi-legal. It’s not card counting or anything that has been seen before, and they really work. Armed with fake IDs and personas they fly down to Vegas. They quickly make mad money. In minutes they are up thousands of dollars. Even though part of the act is to make a scene, the Casino get wise to the kids are winning every time they bet big.

Now the ugly side of Vegas shows its head, Semyon and his buddy are separated. His buddy gets the crap beat out of him in a windowless casino back room, and Semyon is taking to coffee with a British consultant who tries to get a picture of his new enemy.

The casino’s are now on to them. Everywhere they go, the network of Gambling industry identifies them and this British consultant is tracking them. Nevertheless, they travel all over the world, sometime making enormous amounts of money and sometime just getting away with their lives.

Eventually there is too much heat and problems in the group. The team eventually disbands with their lives, but just barely.

It is fair to say that these types of teams and veterans of them are still hitting the Casinos today.

I found the book a bit like a Harry Potter book, in that it starts out a bit slow then by the end you can’t put it down.

I loved this book. It was exciting and I recommend this book to anyone.