Thursday, May 22, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Books: The house always wins

By Tod Goldberg

On any given Friday night at the Venetian, Bellagio or even Sam's Town, someone is counting cards. They're adding the high and low numbers, they're making complex mathematical equations based on the number of decks in play, the position of the cut and, finally, the draw of the cards. They are raising and lowering their bets and, if they are extremely good, if they are extremely precise, and if they don't get caught by the ever-present eye in the sky, or just the cheap-suited pit boss, they can expect a whopping 2 percent return on their investment--assuming they have enough money to actually ride the waves and crests before the inevitable run comes.

Unless, that is, the card counter is part of an organized team of mathematical geniuses sprung from the nation's most elite school of numbers, M.I.T, in which case that card counter may well be looking at a 30 percent return on millions of dollars funneled through an elaborate network of investors, or so goes the story in Ben Mezrich's fast-paced nonfiction account Bringing Down the House. Centering primarily on one of the final recruits to an established team of counters, "Kevin Lewis" (all the names used in the book are aliases), Mezrich weaves a compelling tale of how money can corrupt the dreams of a privileged young man, while also infusing his life with a sense of glamour and excitement certainly not to be found in the world of finance he was soon to enter.

Lewis was your average M.I.T. student: He spent most of his days holed up in a lab, or investigating the machinations of money, his evenings buried in textbooks. He swam, ate pizza and shared his dreams with his equally ambitious girlfriend. In short, he was a college student. In the middle of his junior year, he was approached by two classmates to join a secretive blackjack team run by a former M.I.T. professor and now gaming-obsessed wizard who'd mastered an essential form of counting involving up to 10 different players at once and an elaborate alphabet of signals and statements. For Lewis, and for the reader, this is a deal filled with complexities, but one that any 20-year-old would doubtlessly take.

Mezrich then takes us on a whirlwind tour of familiar haunts--the Mirage, Luxor and MGM were the team's favorites--as Lewis gains confidence in his newfound skills and his group begins to rack up huge victories. In the process Lewis falls for a Rams cheerleader, parties with members of the New York Knicks and becomes a regular at the Crazy Horse Too and Club Paradise. The team soon tires of earning money for other people (who the seed money investors actually are is never divulged) and breaks out on its own, leaving the hands of the former professor.

For three years, everything went better than Lewis could possibly imagine. By his own accounts, he earned millions of dollars--millions of dollars he actually claimed on his IRS forms. The reason was simple: Counting cards isn't illegal and therefore the money could be legally claimed on his taxes. What he didn't anticipate was ever getting caught by the casinos, a fate he should have known was as certain as doubling down on an 11. Lewis and his teammates soon learned that while counting cards wouldn't land them in prison, the casinos did have a few very efficient ways of discouraging its continued practice. And when it became apparent that a teammate had flipped on them, the chase for money turned into a race against time and identity.

Mezrich, who's previous works include several high-octane thrillers, does a nice job of pacing the rise and inevitable downfall of Kevin Lewis--there are several twists and turns best left unspoiled--but annoyingly inserts himself into the story whenever possible, including long-winded passages when he visits Las Vegas to interview wholly unsubstantial bit players. In addition, there are elaborate re-creations of dialogue so expositional in nature that it seems impossible that Mezrich could not have seen through them during at least a cursory rewrite.

Even still, the thrill of a book like House is not found in the prose but in the drama of money, of cheating the casinos, of deceiving yourself. And in that way Bringing Down the House is the perfect book on gambling: It gives you all the odds, shows you how to win and then tells you that you never, ever get to walk away with all the money.