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.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

better than movie, 2008-07-15
the book was naturally a lot more detailed than the movie. they changed a lot about the characters in the movie. if you read the book and then watch the movie afterwords, you will probably be disappointed.


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

The Real Revenge Of The Nerds, 2008-07-14
Winning gambling strategies, including counting cards, are mostly a tedious grind, so making it fast-paced and glamorous takes an art. The book is hard to put down as you keep waiting for these students to make a mistake and get caught.

The one question I kept asking myself as I was reading the book was if any of these MIT mathematical whiz kids would have lived to tell this story if organized crime was still operating the casinos instead of big corporations.

Brilliant book about an almost brilliant idea.


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Great read and interesting development, 2008-07-12
I read this book for my monthly book club. This book was a fast read and the characters and plot was an interesting development. I still can't believe that this is a true story!

I'm definitely looking forward to the movie to see if it lives up to the expectations that the book has already set.


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Takes All The Fun out of playing the game!, 2008-07-09
You know the phrase that cheating doesn't really amount to anything except in this case when the card counting teams from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) organize, rehearse, and prepare to take money from casinos whether Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or the casino boat in Chicago, Mohegan Sun or Foxwoods in Connecticut. Sadly, the book is really for people who enjoy gambling at the casinos like myself. I'm not a high roller. In fact, I'm so far down on the todem pole of rollers that I barely qualify for comps at all. Anyway, the book is a lot more interesting than I thought it would be only because I am fond of playing card games. I just think that the whole idea of card counting and these teams ruin and take away the fun of the sport. Unlike Poker, blackjack can be beatable if you know the system. Then again, it still takes away the fun of playing. Yes, you lose money but you have to be prepared to lose when you walk in the door. Gambling is chance and randomness rolled into one. The house or casino takes their cut and they are going to always have a heads up. When I read about how the kids began to live double lives, I felt sorry for them. I felt sorry for Mickey Rosa, the MIT genius who brought the teams together and trained them. They decide to go without him and if I was on the team, I would have left at that point. Enough was never enough for the players, they wanted more. They got off the adrenaline and high of beating the house at times. The players were more like actors than players. When I go to a casino, I don't expect anything but to break even or lose some money. I don't expect to get it back but that's the fun. If this book has a lesson, it's enjoy the game and stop worrying about cheating and card counting. The house managers know better and they have security, pit bosses, and cameras everywhere. They follow the high rollers for a reason especially if the house is losing. By following the high rollers, they know what they like and if they are going to gamble thousands at a time, they are profitable to the house. Everybody uses everybody in gambling and casino industry. Gambling like prostitution has been around since the beginning of time. If you can control your gambling habit, you are better off. Don't spend a lot of money or worry too much about the cards. You are there to enjoy the game and pray for the chance to win some money. Don't bet your life savings, your house, your car, your children's college fund, your savings, or your plane tickets because you won't see it again. The house doesn't care if you go broke as long as you do it there.


0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

This needed to have more umph to it, 2008-06-23
Rhis book needed to have more umph, more dynamite suspense. more of a sense of 'will we get away with it' to it. No pictures also makes this book lacking. I wanted to see the people who pulled all these card counting routines off. Pictures of the eye in the sky cameras. Pictures of casino bosses.

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