| Bringing Down the House is a true story about MIT students who figured out how to beat the blackjack tables in Vegas. Although what they did was not illegal, they attracted the attention of the IRS, and worse yet, of the casinos themselves. Bring Down the House is a well written, engaging account of the world of gambling. While the back of the book claims that it inspires people to gamble, I didn’t think it did. The students in the book only won through lots of talent and hard work. It might not be respected hard work, they counted cards, smuggled cash and gambled all night, but it still sounds like hard work. And while the danger of getting caught might cause an adrenaline rush in some, it just caused my stomach to hurt and my blood pressure to rise! A good weekend read! |
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Reading your blog, I saw you enjoyed Ben Mezrich’s Bringing Down The House. I agree it is an entertaining book.
I recommend checking out my memoir, AMERICAN ROULETTE: How I Turned the Odds Upside Down—My Wild Twenty-Five-Year Ride Ripping Off the World’s Casinos (St. Martin’s Press). Unlike Mezrich, I lived the actual experience of beating the casinos (and unlike the MIT guys, I bent the gaming laws a bit). In this respect my book is more like Frank Abagnale’s Catch Me If You Can, except no authorities were ever able to gather proof of my activities or prosecute me. The details of my adventures and confindence schemes against the casinos only came fully to light upon publication of my book.
Also, check out my blog, http://www.richardmarcusbooks.com/blog.htm. Like most blogs it is filled with my thoughts on items of the day, in my case tending to focus on casino related news items and events. The most notable element are periodic updates from my former casino cheating partners, who are still out there “working”, cheating casinos today.