The book "Bringing Down the House" By Ben Mezrich, is a fantastic tale about a group of MIT students who develop a strategy that gives them an edge in gambling. This tale, while a true story, is so exciting and outlandish at times, that its very hard to believe. The main character, Kevin Lewis, lives a life most Americans can only dream of, meeting professional basketball players, NFL stars, making millions, and dating an NFL cheerleader. The main character gets so caught up with this fast paced, thrilling lifestyle, that he mistakenly believes it will never end. However just as fast as it all began for him, it came crashing down. Casino authorities were able to develop techniques and security systems that could counter the strategies employed by Kevin Lewis and his team of card counters. It wasn't long before there was not a major casino in the world that Kevin Lewis could safely gamble at. Lewis now not able to depend on his gambling for a livelihood, was forced to refocus on his normal life which consisted of a desk job. Throughout the book, Lewis is always conflicted between the question of whether or not to give up his passion for gambling because he finds that it is preventing him from living a normal life. He feels as if he is living two lives; one in Vegas, the other in Boston. By the end of the book when he realizes the danger involved in card counting, and the power of the casino owners, he knows that it is time to give it up and return to just an average life. Personally, I find this book very applicable to my own life. While its true that I will not at any point in my life be a professional gambler in Vegas, it is, however, true that I will be forced to make difficult choices. Those choices will usually involve conflicting lifestyles. For example, what kind or type of job do I want? Do I want to be a lawyer or a teacher? Kevin Lewis' tale explains and teaches us that not only do you need to choose the job or lifestyle you appreciate and enjoy the most, but also the safest one.

I always enjoy watching the movie that this book is based off, and after my most recent viewing I decided to read the book.

What I didn’t know at the time of many of my viewings of the film is that it’s a true story. A bunch of MIT geeks used maths to beat the system. It’s a bit wow! Was it specifically a crime? No. Was it maybe in the grey area of morality? Sure. Is anyone crying for the poor casinos? Hell no.

This book was a lot of fun to read, and incredibly interesting to hear of the techniques and the lifestyles that these people developed, the size of the network, and how long they got away with it. I imagine that nowadays it would be a lot harder, but not impossible.

I had watched the movie quite a few years ago (at least 8?) and had liked it at the time, albeit before I was legally allowed to enter a casino and before I played my first hand of poker. As someone who's more versed with gambling than their teenage self, I decided to revisit this work - this time in original book form. It had re-entered my mind under the recommendation of a few coworkers, and it seemed like the right time to give it a read. Enough of the movie had left my mind that quite frankly, this felt like a new book to me.

What I really appreciated was that Mezrich explains enough of the blackjack theory in beginner terms that any reader attains a solid grasp of the rationale and methodology behind the madness. In addition, the characters are portrayed with enough detail that you feel as if you knew them. The story is just the right length that I felt engaged at all times, never growing tired of the plot (which sometimes happens).

Honestly, I don't have much fault with the book at all. The only thing mildly confusing is when it swaps between Mezrich's and Kevin's point of views, just because I was using the audiobook and couldn't delineate until a bit into when the chapter actually starts (the timestamps give the best clue, I guess). Otherwise, I understand there are some factual errors (i.e. Terry's job and the actual NFL schedule does not line up, etc.) that might be actually intentional to disguise the identities of the players, or ease the storytelling. For instance, Micky Rosa is actually 3 people in real life. I understand there are quite a few considerations probably out of sight from the reader.

Final Review: 4.5/5. Honestly I haven't felt this engaged in a novel in quite a while, and it was a bonus that I was able to learn a bit about blackjack theory to go with it.

Almost made me wish I had attended MIT rather than Berkeley. :-)

I learned a lot about not only card counting but gambling generally and Vegas in particular. A good summer book.

Book of the month Nonfiction Book Club 2020

As the summer heats up, I find myself wanting to read about tropical locales, westerns, and escapist fiction. For the July book of the month at the nonfiction book club, one of our choices fits this description. Las Vegas- glitz, glamour, and the house always wins, that is until it does not. In his book that later became a major motion picture, Ben Mezrich reveals how a group of math whizzes from MIT learned how to beat the Vegas system and came away with millions. So far fetched yet true, Mezrich’s story fit the bill for my ideal type of summer reading.

Kevin Lewis was a dream student. The only son of immigrants from Hong Kong, Kevin learned from his father at an early age that math and science make the world go round. Conquering complex math problems could lead to jobs on Wall Street or in engineering or medicine, jobs that would allow Kevin to live a cushioned live in the suburbs of an east coast metropolis. This was the epitome of the American dream for the Lewis family, and Kevin’s two older sisters had already graduated from Harvard and Yale respectively and landed in jobs that would make their father proud. Kevin excelled in math and enrolled at MIT, where he was also a member of the swim team. He worked hard only to realize that some of the students were actual geniuses, joined a sports fraternity, and developed a social circle among the many Asian American students on campus. Whereas Kevin divided his time between studying and the swim team, he noticed how some acquaintances disappeared from campus almost every weekend, not the ideal for a student at one of the country’s top universities. It was during his third year at MIT that Kevin found out where these acquaintances spent their weekends, earning thousands in the process.

Since the 1960s when an MIT professor wrote a book on card counting, the idea of using complex mathematical equations to win at blackjack became an established idea. Micky Rosa, a legend at MIT as a card counter took the idea one step further and began the MIT blackjack team, initially recruiting Kevin’s acquaintances. Kevin was at MIT during the 1990s at the height of inside trading and small start up companies and the idea that an Ivy League could make it rich almost as soon as they left college. The idea of using the mathematical skills that landed Kevin at MIT in the first place to strike it rich while still in college was too good to be true. After being initiated into the ins and outs of blackjack card counting, Kevin joined Micky’s team and began his double life of weekends in Vegas and Atlantic City, hobnobbing with the rich and famous. His team won so often that they got big man status at almost every casino they entered, earning comp luxury suites and front row tickets to big time fights and Vegas shows. The team hid their double lives from their families while racking up millions at blackjack; however, like most of the 1990s greed culture, the house of cards eventually came crashing down.

The house hates to lose. Casinos will allow big rollers to win initially because it gives publicity to their hotels and casinos versus the competition, enticing these big rollers to return. Yet, over time, when the house realizes that big rollers are winning most of the time, they take measures to ban them from casinos, ensuring that the house continues to win. Card counters got lumped with criminals even though the majority of card counters used math to beat the odds, noting that card counting was anything but luck. Mezrich had been at Harvard while Kevin was at MIT, and their paths had crossed a few times over the years. By the time Kevin had convinced Mezrich to write his story, his first foray into nonfiction, he had been out of gambling for five years, opting instead for the type of job that his father had groomed him for growing up : a start up company that utilized the mathematical skills that MIT students are known for in a more wholesome environment than Vegas casino floors.

Bringing Down the House was a quick read which brought to light the underbelly of Vegas culture. In his first attempt at nonfiction writing, one can tell that Mezrich is inexperienced in the genre but can still tell a fast paced story. As one who was dubbed a goody two shoes “apple polisher” in school, I had no idea that MIT students, known as the math nerds of the world, would engage in the type of activity that is viewed as counter to their image. I doubt I will ever view MIT in the same light again, although I would hope that the majority of its students are simply math and science geniuses who do not lead double lives as gamblers. After reading Mezrich’s expose, I will think twice before viewing MIT math whizzes as a community of model students.

3.25 stars

I disliked Bringing Down the House, and can't understand why everyone I know who's read it has raved about it.

I'll grant that it's an interesting story. But you know what? It's a sufficiently interesting story that it doesn't need to be sexed up with outright bullshit. Even accounting for the fact that the characters in the book are composites of several actual people, probably 25% of what's left is just pure fiction. He's got one scene where one of the team is beaten up in a bathroom in a Bahamanian casino. It never happened. He's got the principal character taking his final blackjack exam in an underground casino in Chinatown. Never happened. He details one of the team having his apartment broken into, and a safe with $75,000 in it pried out of the wall and stolen. Never. Happened.

This *weakens my interest*. One of the potentially interesting things about this story is how the modern, corporate Vegas would respond to an organized ring of counters. This book doesn't tell you that, because it's so full of bullshit you can't trust anything it has to say on the topic.


And, oh lord, is the dialogue horrible. Hollywood does this a lot: Character A explains something to Character B, but he's really not explaining it to Character B, he's explaining it to the audience. Done properly, this is okay; you don't notice it, it flows, and it tells the audience what's going on without condescending to them. Done improperly, it's annoying as fuck; the worst parts of Casino Royale were the bits with the twit in the casino explaining how poker works to the presumably incredibly competent agent sent by the British government to keep an eye on the money.

Virtually every piece of dialogue in this book is like that. And there's no excuse for it in a book; characters don't have to pretend to explain something to someone who already understands it just to inform the reader, because the fucking narrator can just explain that thing to the reader directly. It's not just annoying, it's lazy, bad writing.

Mezrich explains why he's a lazy, bad writer:

I'm not looking to use big words," Mezrich admits. "I write for people who if they weren't reading my book, they wouldn't be reading another book. They would be watching TV. I'm not competing with other books. I'm competing with the Red Sox." Mezrich works hard to build the excitement early in his plots, before attention spans wane. He gets right to it in Rigged, explaining in the first few pages the main character's involvement with the shady world of the New York Mercantile Exchange: "If Wall Street was the financial equivalent of Vegas, the Merc was Atlantic City—on crack.



This book is crap - on crack. And it's a shame, because there's an interesting true story under all the dross.

You want a good book to read, on a similar subject? Go buy The Eudaemonic Pie. It's about a bunch of grad students from UC Santa Cruz who, in the 70s, designed and built wearable computers intended to let them beat the house at roulette. And it's good. It's also not tarted up.

The book is great. It’s not a book that you’ll be emotionally attached to or have some type of twist psychological ending. It’s a book about counting cards and working as a team to gain profits from a casino. You feel the highs they feel and you feel the lows as well, it’s a good book that really gives a feeling of living the high life like the subjects in such. But I’ve also got some problems with it.
The dialogue. I wish the author chose to use more of a narrator, instead he uses the dialogue to explain something to the audience but it’s actually just the characters talking? But they already know the info? So it’s a little confusing at times. Other than that. Good read.

Brilliant book! After seeing the movie - with the famous Monty Hall problem scene - I was utterly triggered to read the original (non-fictional) story. Great storyline in combination with interesting mathematical concepts. Happy to have this one on the shelf.

Bringing Down The House never failed to excite me. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. During the book, it mainly follows the character, Kevin Lewis. Kevin is a student at M.I.T. and is very smart. Just looking at Kevin, you would never think he has a brain of the power that he does. Even when you think there is a calmer more relaxing part of the book you get hit with a twist. For example, the book starts out with Kevin sitting at a blackjack table in Vegas. He had already made $30,000 that trip, and he couldn’t decide whether to pack it up and head back to Boston or put in another bet. But at that moment he receives the most dreaded signal he could get from his spotter. She ran her right hand through her hair. That meant, “get out, and now!” I don't know about you, but I was not expecting something that intense in the first chapter. In another Goodreads review, I saw Joe thinks that if casinos don’t want people to count cards, they should use an automatic shuffler or shuffle more frequently than they are now. I completely agree with this because counting cards are not illegal in any way and they should not be punished in any way. I am very surprised that Kevin goes through all of this hard work and taking so many chances to count cards. If you think about this, he doesn’t have to do this. He is very smart. If he graduates from M.I.T., he could get almost any job he wants, but he chooses to go to Vegas every weekend and risk his future. This fact just baffles me. This book isn’t for everyone. If you are someone who is uncomfortable with drugs or alcohol, I wouldn’t recommend reading this. I wouldn’t recommend it because there are multiple points where they talk about Kevin’s alcohol and drug addiction. Other than that if you like exciting and suspenseful books, I would recommend this book any day of the week.

Extremely entertaining, much better than the movie (even though the movie is a guilty pleasure), highly recommend a read

Bringing Down the House is an action packed book with many scenes that keep the reader wanting more. Although it wasn't as good as I thought it would be, it was still a good read. Some readers thought that immoderate use of cursing kind of brought the book to a lower level. I disagree with this. I believe that this kind of language helped show some of the characters' emotions during rough and troubling times. Although, at some moments it was not needed, the use of this language did not make a book terrible. Another reader said that she would not want to gamble, but she sees how easy it is to get caught in the lifestyle of gambling. This statement is very agreeable. As I was reading the book, I imagined myself as Kevin Lewis or one of the other MIT members gambling and outsmarting the system.

This book is not meant for everyone. If someone likes a fast paced, eventful story, then this book is for them. Card counters live a suspenseful life. They are often at risk of getting caught or not earning profit from their betting. Nothing is slow in their life, and the book demonstrates that idea. If a reader are like me, then the reader would not enjoy this fast paced story. Often, I found myself confused of what was going on and I had to reread multiple areas multiple times. Also, some of the detail in this book was not as good as I thought it would be. For example, in the latter part of the book, Kevin's teammates get robbed. The book does not go in deep detail about the robbing though, which frustrated me. So, if as a reader detail does not have to be exact, then this book is for you.

In this book, the writer's strategy took me a while to figure out. I often thought it was something other than what I believe it is now. The writer's strategy in this book is to be aware of your surroundings at all times and to also think before you do. Now, other people may disagree with this, but this is was I thought it was. The book basically shows how Kevin Lewis goes from a regular MIT student to a professional card counter. However, along the way, there are many things that Kevin and his team were not aware of. Mickey, and ex-member of the group, was one of the major leaders of the group. When he got voted out the team, Mickey gave Martinez, Fisher, and Kevin warning about the growing technology that the casinos were starting to obtain. Only Kevin actually thought about this. When he tried warning Martinez and Fisher, they both did not pay any attention to it. This eventually caused a big problem with the group, and eventually made the group split. If the team payed attention to Mickey's warnings, maybe they would not have been unsuccessful towards the latter stages.

In Bring Down the House, it was easy to get attached, if you will, to the characters. It almost felt as if you were observing them on a mini television in your brain. The plot was written well, and it was a strength of the book. There was not really a good poetic use of language in is book. In my earlier paragraph, I talked about the unnecessary use of curse words and how sometimes it was good and sometimes it was not. I would not say there was a poetic was of this writing, so it was a weakness in my opinion. Finally, I would also say that there was not really that much good detail. Yes, it expressed detail about what a casino looked like, how a character felt, or even how Kevin swims, but it was not enough. The lack of detail kind of ruined the book for me, but other than that the book was fascinating.

It was a page turner! I finished this one in one day. The story drew me in and I loved learning about how the MIT students were able to win big in Vegas with their mathematical skill and teamwork. Some of the characters struggle with what they are doing; those same people are often drawn back in for more, however. The Vegas lifestyle and making immense amounts of money are addictive.