Busting Vegas

A True Story of Monumental Excess, Sex, Love, Violence, and Beating the Odds

By: Ben Mezrich

Narrated by: Ben Mezrich

Semyon Dukach was known as the darling of Las Vegas. A legend at twenty-one, this cocky hotshot was the biggest high roller to appear in Sin City in decades, a mathematical genius with a system the casinos had never seen before and couldn't stop -- a system that had nothing to do with card counting, wasn't illegal, and was more powerful than anything that had been tried before.

Las Vegas. Atlantic City. Aruba. Barcelona. London. And the jewel of the gambling crown -- Monte Carlo.

Dukach and his fellow MIT students hit them all and made millions. They came in hard, with stacks of cash; big, seemingly insane bets; women hanging on their arms; and fake identities. While they were taking classes and studying for exams during the week, over the weekends they stormed the blackjack tables, only to be banned from casinos, harassed, on the wrong end of guns, and beaten in the notorious back rooms of casinos.

The stakes were high, the dangers very real, but the players were up to the challenges, the consequences be damned. In the classroom, they were geeks. On the casino floor, they were unstoppable. Busting Vega$ is Dukach's unbelievably true story; a riveting account of monumental greed, excess, hubris, sex, love, violence, fear, and statistics that is high-stakes entertainment at its best.

©2005 Ben Mezrich; (P)2005 HarperCollins Publishers

An Inside Look

A fansinating, inside look at a portion of the gambling industry. This is a well told and well read account of what a little ingenuity can accomplish, or perhaps I should say can destroy.

Typical Mezrich

Busting Vegas reads just like many of Mezrich's other books, where much of the plot seems to be a "cookie cutter" -young stud wants a young hottie and is involved with a scheme to make bookoo bucks- like "21" or "Sex on the Moon" or "Ugly Americans"... But since it's a Mezrich, it is done well and is entertaining and will probably be made into a movie. This time I recommend reading the original rather than waiting for the movie.

one of Ben Mezrich best

Ben Mezrich has a voice for narration the book was very exciting a must download another great book is 21

A Flat Read

For a story about "busting" Vegas, these characters never really get their act together. It's more a story about how well the casinos are at spotting and dealing with potential trouble makers. What could have been an interesting magazine article is expanded with a tepid love story, and a load of hard boiled exposition that hopes to make the story sound a lot more interesting then it is. Unfortunately, any attempt to enliven the story is squashed by the author's flat delivery. Not that I would recommend the book, but to anyone who's thinking of reading it I suggest buying the printed version. Maybe the writing fares better when not read by someone who sounds like he's standing in front of his High School english class reading a book report.

Beware, it's abridged

It was a great story, just missing lots of bits that I wish were in there.