Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions has been tabbed "the book Vegas wants you to read." And yet it's the story of one of the Strip's most embarrassing periods, when a card-counting blackjack team from Boston made regular weekend trips to Sin City and walked away with tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes more, for a couple days' work. But the big winners who made headlines always benefitted Vegas in the long run. Beating the house is never as easy as it looks.
Though it looked all that easy then, in the mid-'90s, when several team members would hit the casino floors with the following duties:
Spotters: Four or so players, at different tables, would consistently bet the minimum, keeping mostly to basic strategy and making a few mistakes so as to blend in like an ordinary, non-threatening bettor. Their win/loss ratio was unimportant. What mattered most was their inconspicuous, continuous tally of the "shoe count." Cards 2-6 were counted as +1. A 10, face card or ace was a -1. Cards 7,8 and 9 were neutral. When the shoe count was high, which mathematically gave the player a slight advantage over the house, the spotter would nonverbally signal in a Big Player.
Big Players: Typically two on the floor at a time, the BP's would meander around, read the spotters' signals, get passed the count inconspicuously, and bet big according to the healthy decks of remaining cards.
And the best part? It's all legal. As long as players don't affect the outcome of the deal or use an electronic device to count, counting is not a crime. But casinos have the right to ask you to leave, which is why the team went to great lengths to not draw suspicion, never acknowledging each other on the floor.
A stream of big money of everything else that comes with the high rolling — comped suites, women, assigned casino hosts — followed. Till someone, somewhere pieced it all together and notified casinos around the country. The jig was up, but $3 million too late.
I rolled through this book in just a few sittings, and that's pretty much my criteria for a "good" book, but I wouldn't say it's a great one. There are so many unanswered questions. Like how could pit bosses not be suspicious of a high-roller known on a first-name basis who keeps coming in mid-shoe and winning big? Don't they notice that a familiar-looking face, albeit one betting the minimum, is always at the table when the high-roller does his damage? Don't they notice that these "reckless" high-rollers only played blackjack?
The book can also be a bit tedious. It can be overly descriptive at times — colors and smells and specific types of sushi and all that — and yet we never even hear how the BP adjust's his bet according to the shoe count until the last few pages. Throughout the book, that missing element was driving me crazy. And what happened if a BP came into a hot shoe and then the count ran low? We never know, which is why I felt like I was reading a dumbed-down version of what the book could have been. And for that reason and more, this book will almost certainly be made into a movie ... starring Ben Affleck.
In Five Words or Less: Overall Good, With Some Holes
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I would like to take notice of my football picks in the "Paul's Picks" section below. I got the New England Game on the nose. I wish I was in the actual pool....dammit.
(Note From Paul: Hallas (and all), for archive purposes, please post comments under the appropriate entry. When people come to read about this book months and possibly years from now, through search engines, it'll be confusing to come across a tout about someone's NFL picking skills ... through one game.)
Posted by Hallas at September 10, 2004 9:41 AM