Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.1720922
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Free Press
Manufacturer: Free Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 272
Printing Date: September 09, 2003
Publishing house: Free Press
Sale Popularity Level: 120650
Studio: Free Press
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
#1 National Bestseller!
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 sucess 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.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Pros: Great book about MIT students who use their brains for more than science, but to take advantage of inefficient markets. Well written, fast paced and exciting.
Cons: None
Summary: Fast read about a real story that's exciting and fun.
Overall: 9/10
Rated by buyers -
In Bringing Down The House, Ben Mezrich tells the true story of a group of MIT students who count cards in blackjack. The story focuses on Kevin Lewis, and how he came to be an expert card counter. At no time is this story dull or boring. It will keep you into it until the very end. The story itself is unbelievable, which makes the book even more amazing. Mezrich does a great job of describing the thoughts and actions that each student took during the book. He also does a good job on showing each character's growth and development during the book. Kevin starts off the story as a shy Asian kid who is not happy with his job at the lab. Once his friends Martinez and Fisher show him the amazing world of counting cards, Kevins life turns completely different. The Las Vegas highlife and huge amounts of money turn Kevin into a completely different person. His change during the book is smooth and very believable. This is the kind of book that you will pick up and wont be able to put down. It's an easy and a very fun read. It will show you a different side of Vegas and a different side of Blackjack. Mezrich shows how difficult card counting really is and how much hard work it is to master it. Kevin and his team went out nearly every weekend to Vegas to count cards. Their lives in Las Vegas completely overshadowed their lives at home. Not only did the team spend almost every weekend in Las Vegas, but they had to keep their double lives secret from all their family and close friends. The team counted for over a year. Spending that much time together, there must be some problems they encounter. If you read this book I can guarantee you that you will not be disappointed.
Rated by buyers 
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Looks like Ben Mezrich can join the ranks of James Frey, Dave Pelzer and Kathy O'Beirne, who write fiction but call it non-fiction. After reading this book I decided to do some online research. Didn't take long to find this comment in Wikipedia "In 2008, Boston magazine and The Boston Globe investigated the accuracy of Mezrich's non-fiction, identifying occasions in his blackjack books where scenes were invented out of whole cloth." Very disappointing to discover another best seller that is so fabricated yet purports to be telling the truth.
Rated by buyers -
Not sure what to say. There might be a kernel of truth to what happened, but it certainly didn't happen as described in this tripe. Anyone who falls for this sure is naive.
Rated by buyers -
I didn't understand why the book said the F word so many times. I know that it is based in Vegas, but I just don't think that it was necessary and got very annoying towards the end. It also makes me hesitate to recommend this book because I don't want to offend anyone and them thinking that I didn't mind the crude language.
After I read the book I looked up the story on the Internet about what happened with these MIT guys and I was annoyed to find that most of the stuff that was in the novel was untrue or exageratted. I just wish he wouldn't of made up some of the stuff in the book. I am sure it would of still been interesting if he told the truth of what the students did.
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