Bringing Down the House (book)

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Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
Image:Bringing Down the House book cover.png
Author Ben Mezrich
Language English
Subject(s) Blackjack
Publisher Free Press
Publication date 9 September 2003
Pages 272 pp

Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (ISBN 0-7432-4999-2) is a book by Ben Mezrich about a group of MIT card counters commonly known as the MIT Blackjack Team.

While represented as non-fiction by Mezrich and Free Press, the book contains significant fictional elements. Many of the key events propelling the drama did not occur at all; others were exaggerated greatly.[1]

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

The book's main character is Kevin Lewis, an MIT graduate who was invited to join the MIT Blackjack Team in 1993. Lewis was recruited by two of the team's top players, Jason Fisher and Andre Martinez. The team was financed by a colorful character named Micky Rosa, who had organized at least one other team to play the Vegas strip. This new team was the most profitable yet. Personality conflicts and card counting deterrent efforts at the casinos eventually ended this incarnation of the MIT Blackjack Team.

[edit] Characters

[edit] Kevin Lewis

Although not revealed in the book, Kevin Lewis's real name is Jeff Ma, an MIT student who graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1994. Jeff has since gone on to found a fantasy sports company called ProTrade (a stock market simulation game).[2]

Mezrich acknowledges that Lewis is the sole major character based on a single, real-life individual; other characters are composites. Nonetheless, Lewis does things in the book that Ma himself says did not occur.[1]

[edit] Jason Fisher

One of the leaders of the team, Jason Fisher, is modeled in part after Mike Aponte. After his professional card counting career, Mike went on to win the 2004 World Series of Blackjack, and started a company called the Blackjack Institute, which offers instructional products and services.

[edit] Micky Rosa

The team's principal leader, Micky Rosa, is based very loosely on Bill Kaplan from Plattsburgh NY, the founder and leader of the team, JP Massar, an initial MIT player on the team who went on to co-manage the team with Kaplan, and John Chang, a player trained by Kaplan and Massar (neither of whom were MIT professors, as Rosa is).[3][1] Chang has questioned the book's veracity, telling The Boston Globe, "I don't even know if you want to call the things in there exaggerations, because they're so exaggerated they're basically untrue."[1]

[edit] Controversy

[edit] Boston Magazine and Boston Globe Articles

In its March, 2008 edition, Boston magazine ran an article investigating long-lingering claims that the book was substantially fictional.[4] The Boston Globe followed up with a more detailed story on April 6, 2008.[1]

Though published as a factual account and originally categorized under "Current Events" in the hardcover Free Press edition, Bringing Down the House "is not a work of 'nonfiction' in any meaningful sense of the word," according to Globe reporter Drake Bennett. Mezrich not only exaggerated freely, according to sources for both articles, but invented parts of the story out of whole cloth. Some pivotal events in the book never happened to anyone.

[edit] Disclaimer and Leeway

The book contains the following disclaimer:

The names of many of the characters and locations in this book have been changed, as have certain physical characteristics and other descriptive details. Some of the events and characters are also composites of several individual events or persons.[5]

This disclaimer allows broad leeway to take real events and real people and alter them in any way the author sees fit. But Mezrich went further, both articles say.

[edit] Historical inaccuracies

The following events described in Bringing Down the House did not occur:

  • Underground Chinatown Casino. The underground casino used for Kevin's final test (pp. 55-59) is entirely imaginary, according to Mike Aponte and Dave Irvine.[4]
  • Use of Strippers to Cash Out Chips. Also according to Aponte and Irvine,[4] strippers were never recruited to cash out the team's chips, as described on pp. 149-153.
  • Shadowy Investors. The "shadowy investors" first referenced on p. 3 are a major source of intrigue for Mezrich's story, but did not exist, according to Aponte and Irvine.[4] The investors in the team included the players, one of Kaplan's college roommates, a few of Kaplan's Harvard Business School section mates, and Kaplan's friends and family members.
  • Physical Assault. The scene in which Fisher is beaten up (pp. 221-225) is imaginary. "No one was ever beaten up,"[4] according to Aponte and Irvine.
  • Player Forced to Swallow Chip. In a scene on pp. 215-218, Micky Rosa recounts a story in which Vincent Cole -- a private investigator for Plymouth Investigations -- forces a member of a count team to swallow a purple casino chip while detaining the player in a back room. Sources in the Globe described the story as "implausible," and none recalled having heard it.[1]
  • Theft of $75,000. One MIT player, Kyle Schaffer, did lose $20,000 when it was stolen from a desk drawer.[1] Mezrich inflates the amount of the theft by 375% and turns the desk drawer into a safe pried dramatically from a wall. Moreover, the robbery scene (pp. 240-244) creates the impression that a team member or Vincent Cole was the likely culprit. Schaffer says the theft was likely unrelated to blackjack, noting that $100,000 or more in casino chips also inside the drawer was left untouched ("strongly suggesting that the thieves had no idea of their worth"[1]).
  • Forcible Entry to Kevin Lewis's Apartment. Kevin hurries from the scene of the robbery to his own apartment (pp. 244-245) to make sure all is well. Nothing has been stolen, but Kevin finds "a single purple casino chip sitting on his kitchen table." The implication is that the chip is a calling card left by Vincent Cole as a warning to Kevin. This scene again asks readers to accept that the chip-swallowing story is factual (or at least was actually in circulation among MIT counters as a myth).

[edit] Sequel

Though not originally intended to have a sequel, Mezrich followed this book with Busting Vegas (ISBN 0060575123). Busting Vegas is about another splinter group from the MIT Blackjack Team. Despite heavy marketing Busting Vegas did not do as well as Bringing Down the House although it did briefly appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.

[edit] Film adaptation

Main article: 21 (2008 film)

A film adaptation of the book, entitled 21 (so as not to cause confusion with the unrelated 2003 comedy film that bears the same name as the book), was released in theaters on March 28, 2008.[6] The film is from Columbia Pictures and was directed by Robert Luketic.

Kevin Spacey produced the film, and also portrays the character of Mickey Rosa. Other cast members include Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth, Jim Sturgess, Jacob Pitts, Liza Lapira, Aaron Yoo, and Sam Golzari.[7][8] 21 was filmed at Boston University, throughout Cambridge and Boston, and in Las Vegas.

Says Mezrich, "...Kevin Spacey came to me about making a movie. He read the Wired adaptation[9] of the book and became interested... The funny thing is filming may take in casinos such as the The Mirage and Caesar's Palace, where the real thing happened."[10]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Bennett, Drake (2008-04-06), “House of cards”, Boston Globe (The New York Times Company), <http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/04/06/house_of_cards/>. Retrieved on 6 May 2008 
  2. ^ About Us / The Protrade Team (English). Citizen Sports Network (2008). Retrieved on 2008-05-06.
  3. ^ http://www.wickedlocal.com/allston/fun/entertainment/x1277310722 The Allston-Brighton Tab: Kaplan Inspires Hollywood Film '21.' Retrieved April 12, 2008.
  4. ^ a b c d e Gonzalez, John (2008-03), “Ben Mezrich: Based on a True Story”, Boston magazine (Metrocorp, Inc.), <http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/ben_mezrich_based_on_a_true_story/page1>. Retrieved on 6 May 2008 
  5. ^ Mezrich, Ben, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (New York: Free Press, 2002), p. iv.
  6. ^ Production Weekly: Luketic Hacking Las Vegas. Retrieved March 6, 2007.
  7. ^ benmezrich.com. Retrieved March 6, 2007
  8. ^ Although the main characters upon which the film 21 is based were Asian-American, most of the cast was not. Kevin Der (2005-09-30). MIT Alumnus and ‘Busting Vegas’ Author Describe Experience of Beating the House. The Tech. Retrieved on 2008-03-29.
  9. ^ Mezrich, Ben (2002-09). Wired 10.09: Hacking Las Vegas. Retrieved on 2008-05-14.
  10. ^ Zhang, Jenny. "Card Counting Gig Nets Students Millions", The Tech, MIT Newspaper, 2002-10-25. Retrieved on 2008-05-14. 

[edit] External links

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