Busting Vegas by Ben Mezrich

Busting Vegas is a book that chronicles the exhilarating story of a bunch of MIT students and grads who, "brought the casinos to their knees!" The mastermind of the scheme was a MIT graduate named Victor Cassius who created and patented the techniques used in the casinos. This mathematical wizard with the personality to pull it off was Semyon Dukach. The young women who had the looks to catch your eye coupled with the smarts to take down casinos was Allie Simpson. These three, along with a few other teamates, won millions across the globe at casinos in: Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Aruba, Barcelona, London, and Monte Carlo. All this success would come at a cost as they would later be harassed, beaten up, and banned from many casinos.


The author was skilled at setting the scene and creating an environment where you could almost see the casino. At the beginning of the novel, he skipped around a little which made the novel a bit difficult for me to follow, but once I got into it, the story really flowed. He obviously researched the events well, and spent alot of time with these individuals, because the stories and scenes were very vivid. They way he described the casino scenes provided a great illustration of these colourfull casinos and made you really believe the reality of the situation.



"Make money over the summer. Play with the MIT Blackjack Team. Saturday morning, April 12. Room 262."



-This quote appeals to me because it is how the blackjack team began. Victor posted this sign on a message board at MIT and about 25-30 students showed up. Even if you are not the greatest math student, or the best card player, this would be very appealing as "make money" would make many people excited.



"Nogov. You can call me Nikolai. This is my friend Sonya."



-This is Semyon in response to the pit boss asking who he was. Nikolai and Sonya were names and characters that Victor had thought up for Allie and Semyon. In order to throw around such hoards of money, they had to act like high rollers, and a young, rich, Russian hot shot was the perfect disguise. To the casino, he was stupid rich kid blowing away his money, but what they didn't know was that they had a fool proof plan.



"Ladies from the right! Ladies from the left!"



-This is Semyon at the famous brothel in Nevada. One of the only places where prostitution is legal in the United States, and a place where lonely high rollers go. A place where the brilliant run of these MIT students came to an end.