Mezrich's book is about a group of four select MIT students who utilize three blackjack card "tricks" to win loads of money from casinos around the world. Along the way they also lose large amounts to carelessness and casino security, as well as get arrested and beat here and there. Busting Vegas eventually ends with a "soft landing" after the ringleader crashlands a small plane and he and his partner incur minor burns rescuing their money from the burning plane, and then four members of the team end up getting married.

Interesting, or totally made-up? I don't know; what is for sure is that this is too much like "Bringing Down the House" - also involving MIT students, casinos, and blackjack. The story begins with an MIT recruitment fair for those interested in making money in casinos. The best candidates are selected to fill role models - rich, slightly drunk and crazy Russians who love to gamble. Their trick, however, is not card-counting but identifying the bottom-card as the dealer prepares to deal, cutting the deck EXACTLY 52 cards away (a skill presumably accomplished through a great deal of practice), and waiting for the kill. But first, they take over an entire table - either by asking the dealer to raise the limit or driving away others through their obnoxiousness.

If an ace is spotted, the team waits until the card is due for play, and then suddenly raise their bets. Similarly, a face card - this they apparently try to maneuver to hopefully bust the dealer. Initially the team wins about $20,000 in a Vegas trip, but eventually meets up with an investigator contracted to numerous casinos to investigate suspicious winnings. One of the team is beat, another interrogated. They stand silent, knowing that nothing is illegal.

On and on, around the world. The PI increasingly keeps foiling their efforts, faxing their photos or identifying them to others. They are barred from playing in London, and arrested and beaten in Monte Carlo.

Validity: Not only does the plot suffer from being almost a Xerox of "Bringing Down the House," the system is so simple that the great mathematical talent prerequisite for being on the team really isn't needed. Further, one wonders how they can take so much time off from class for their globe-trotting. An interesting story, but one wonders whether it should be categorized as "Fiction."

OK, so this is supposed to be some kind of "true story" written in a narrative style. Maybe Mezrich is shooting for a movie script, what with the lame words he puts into the mouths of the characters as they go about there action. I can see the movie poster, with the words, "based on real events" - based on tha fact that there was a casino and people who thought they had a system. Frankly, the rest is balderdash.

The writing and storyline result in anyone with much of a brain having to let go of reality to believe it. I mean, the scene where Semyon and Allie finally get it on made me laugh! I didn't really care about any of the characters (despite the writer's titilatting descriptions of Allie).

Finally, to have an epilogue in which Semyon professes that they were on a mission to give it to the casinos is pure bullocks. There was NOTHING in the book to make one think that these characters were anything but intellectually elite opportunists, reveling in their success. The guy even includes his website to sell his wares!

This is pure fiction. Go to Vegas and try to use any of these techniques. Ha!. They cover the back of the deck in Vegas and have been for years - u simply can't use these techniques and I doubt you ever could. Please.

Mezrich broke onto the bestseller list with his account of an MIT blackjack uber-card counting team that hit Vegas for big money (in 2003's Bringing Down the House). Now he's back with a another MIT-whiz kid blackjack scam, only this one is even more unbelievable and over-the-top. People have heard of the card counters discussed in Mezrich's first book, but the three types of play desribed in Busting Vegas are going to be brand-new to most readers. So new, in fact, that they may seem unbelievable.

These blackjack techniques (or scams, depending on your point of view) involve as much math as they do shuffle-watching and precise card-cutting. It's a marriage of the intense math required for card counting and the near-impossible perfect moves required in a roulette or craps scam. Complete control of an entire table by the team is required, so that a known card can be directed to hit on the appropriate hand. No random players can be sitting at the table taking cards out of the shuffle.

As with the other MIT scam, the players have to take on fake identities. In this scam, however, it is essential that everyone be a big roller, a "whale." Just watching the insane Russian arms dealer, trust-fund brat, and European rock star characters these guys take around the Strip is entertaining.

Is Mezrich's account to be taken as the literal truth? Of course not! Names have been changed and the story has been spiced up to read like a Grisham novel. Semyon Dukatch himself has said that the story captures the "essense" of his experience. This isn't meant to be 100% truth, and it would probably be a heck of a lot more dry reading if someone had told every literal fact from start to finish. Mezrich's cinematic style, full of highs and lows for the characters, makes for compelling reading.

Enjoy this as a great novel about whiz kids beating the establishment of the casinos (for a short while), and don't worry too much about where the line between fact and fiction is.

First of all, I would like to point out the fact that I hate to read. The only time I pick up a book, is when it deals with something that I am very interested in. Blackjack is one of my passions.

The plot of the book is outstanding. It is based on real life events, where an M.I.T. based Blackjack team had created a new and superior (working!) system for winning consistently. Ben Mezrich's account of the story, takes you through step by step of what really happened. The reason I really enjoyed this book, is because it reads like fiction. It is that enjoyable.

The story line makes this book impossible to put down.
As the story progresses, the suspense grows because the team becomes closer and closer to being taken down.

The book starts out making you think that the team is invincible. But, as time goes on, you begin to realize that the story is just like any other having to do with gambling. One way or another, the house always wins.

I usually can't stand to read at all, but this book had me glued to the pages. The plot, as well as the detailed description of the techniques make Busting Vegas a must read book.