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FEATURE ARTICLE: By Savannahbusiness.com

The BOOK REVIEW
“Bringing Down The House” - by Ben Mezrich

by David L. Eckles

Do you dream of making a big score in Las Vegas? In “Bringing Down The House,” Ben Mezrich tells the story of how a group of students from M.I.T did just that. Mezrich chronicles the recruitment and eventual indoctrination of a young student into a sophisticated plot that succeeded in taking millions of dollars from Las Vegas casinos-legally! Although its relevance to the “business world” is not clear, Mezrich’s book is a very interesting tale.

The book is a biography of Kevin Lewis (an alias) and how his team of card counters was able to consistently beat “the house” in blackjack. We all know that casinos hold an advantage over any gambler. Millions of gambling hopefuls go to Las Vegas every year with their own “system” that will guarantee success and reverse the casino’s edge. However, by rule, most of these visitors go home lighter in the wallet. The complex card-counting system documented in the story is a rare exception to this rule. While card counting is a very common method used by blackjack players to gain an advantage, most people either do not know how to properly adjust their strategy, or simply cannot accurately keep the count.

Mezrich shows how using a team of players with sophisticated, yet very simple, communication between them could take simple blackjack strategy coupled with a very accurate “count” of the cards and win millions of dollars, almost risk-free. After all, to the members of the team “card counting wasn’t gambling. It was arbitrage.” In addition to writing about the very clever system used to overcome the casino’s advantage, Mezrich’s book also details the life span of Kevin Lewis’s membership of the team: from practicing in an underground Boston casino to honing his skills in casinos from Shreveport to Las Vegas. All isn’t a bed of roses for Lewis and the team, however, and Mezrich includes stories of run-ins with casino security, the IRS and even Lewis’s own family to show the perils of the venture.

The book concludes with the breakup of the team and Lewis’s subsequent attempt at starting his own. Lewis soon learns that there may not be room for two teams and retires. Mezrich’s book is an extremely fun read. Anyone who has ever played blackjack will be amazed and impressed with the intricacy and execution of the system. Perhaps the only drawback to the book is that any reader with even the slightest desire to hit the casinos will be ready to book a ticket to Vegas. So, who’s with me?

Dr. David L. Eckles recently joined the Department of Finance & Quantitative Analysis as an assistant professor of finance in Georgia Southern University’s College of Business Administration. He teaches corporate finance and enterprise risk management. Dr. Eckles can be reached by email at deckles@georgiasouthern.edu..