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

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.

Ben Mezrich is superb writer and story teller with the amazing ability to weave the excitement of a Las Vegas casino, the mathmetics of card counting with enjoyable interpersonal dynamics so that this is a consuming story with people you care about. His description of the high roller lifestyle in Vegas takes you to the tables playing sums you watch others wager with the adrenaline rush like you were part of the team. I bought the book in Boston having just missed him at a book signing and had a hardtime finishing the conference. I found myself in the room reading a book I could not put down instead of going out in one of the towns in which the story was set. It was that engrossing.

My Christmas list now contains all of his previous writings as this is an author who knows how to tell a story.


Beating the odds and living a constant adrenaline high!   May 3, 2003
Linda Linguvic (New York City)
91 out of 101 found this review helpful

This is a fast and explosive read. It's a true story that's so high-powered that the tension never ceases and I was thrust into a roller coaster ride that kept my eyes glued to the pages.

The story is told through the eyes of the author, who met one of the students at a party and was so intrigued by his outrageous tale that he was compelled to put it into a book. This is a story of a group of math whizzes, most of Asian descent, who used the art of card counting, worked as teams, and legally won as much as 4 million dollars during the few years they spent their weekends in the Vegas casinos, living the high life.

They strapped thousands of dollars to their bodies with Velcro to get the cash onto planes, used false names, and were always on the lookout for Las Vegas personnel who would sometimes personally escort them out of the casinos. They also learned about the seediness of the gambling world, greed, the way the Vegas corporations work. Of course they all went through changes. And eventually, it had to come to an end. Some of it is kind of scary too. But mostly, it's about beating the odds and living with a constant adrenaline high.

Well, reading this book is an adrenaline high of it's own. It put me right into the action and kept me there for the whole 257 pages. I loved it. And highly recommend it.


THEY DESERVE WHAT THEY GOT !   October 5, 2002
MOVIE MAVEN (New York, NY USA)
57 out of 69 found this review helpful

I have never been to Las Vegas; the last time I was in Atlantic City if there were casinos, I certainly didn't know about them; I have bet and lost a few dollars in slot machines. In other words, I know next to nothing about gambling and absolutely nothing about a gambler stacking the odds in his favor through intelligent, obsessive, dizzyingly difficult planning.

Ben Mezrich's BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE is bound to become a movie: it is non-fiction that reads like one of the most exciting, fascinating novels you could pick up. Briefly (and simplisticly) six M.I.T. "nerd" students set about to win big at the tables in Vegas...and they did...by learning to count the cards in games of Blackjack. Sound simple? Well, the planning and execution that this entails is unbelievably hard, especially for someone like myself who is no good with math and/or numbers and has no patience for details, whatsoever.

I don't want to give away too many of Mezrich's surprises, but I promise you that his book is absolutely impossible to put down. When I didn't have a huge grin on my face, my mouth had dropped open in shock. This is a REAL caper adventure...one that I think I'd love to be a part of, but, upon reflection, know that it takes stronger hearts than mine. The guys who opened up their lives to Mezrich deserve everything they got. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED


An incredible story   October 30, 2003
Rick Van Hazel (Phoenix, AZ)
43 out of 48 found this review helpful

Bringing Down the House is probably the most entertaining book I have read in a long time. I actually found it difficult to put down. When I should have been sleeping I instead continued reading saying to myself "this is the last chapter then i'm going to bed".

I've always had a great interest in gambling and have read many books on card counting as well as heard a little about what this team did in Vegas. When I saw the title I knew I had to give this one a read. I have fairly decent understanding of the many mainstream concepts of blackjack strategy and what this team did was purely brilliant and outside of the common beliefs that Vegas and many pro gamblers (the ones who write books about it) want you to believe. An example, casinos would love to make you think that its impossible to count or beat a 6 deck shoe. In reality this is completely untrue. 1 deck might be easy to count, but you generally only get 1 or 2 rounds of play out of it so when the numbers run to your favor you only have one hand to take advantage of it. When the shoe runs positive, the cards can go several rounds before they flatten out. There are of course many other factors involved such as how deep into the stack the dealer puts the shuffle card, etc.

To any gambling enthusiast this is a must read. To anyone who is neutral on gambling, it is a story that is easy to follow and very intriguing. If you hate gambling and everything it stands for, you might not like it.


Exciting and Fun   September 22, 2003
K. Kaczmarek (Allen Park, Mi United States)
19 out of 21 found this review helpful

At first glance you may think that "Bringing down the House" is a 200+ page tip sheet on how you can count cards like the MIT kids of the late nineties. If you are looking to learn their techniques, look elsewhere. Ben Mezrich instead leads us thru the rise and "fall" of the MIT whiz kids destruction of Vegas and other national casinos. The book offers an easy to follow story, with chapters of interviews with those that knew the card counters themselves.
The book was a quick read, and was a great primer for my weekend in Vegas. I actually gambled a lot less while I was there because I knew after reading this how true the phrase is, "The house never loses"

If you are looking for something fun, quick and exciting, and are not looking to learn card counting, then this book is for you!!