21

Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions

By: Ben Mezrich

Narrated by: Johnny Heller

Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

In the midst of the Go-Go '90s, the culture of greed infused the MIT campus. A small blackjack club sprang up, dedicated to counting cards and beating the house at major casinos around the country. The Club grew slowly at first, but by the late 1990s, the right people had come up with the right system to take some of the world's most sophisticated casinos for all they were worth. In less than two years, this ring of card savants earned more than $3 million from corporate Vegas. This is the true story of how they did it.

Bringing Down the House is everyman's dream, certainly every gambler's dream, and gambling is a growth industry on the East and West Coasts.

A cross between Liar's Poker, Ocean's Eleven, and The Cuckoo's Egg, this fast-paced caper features the most unlikely of heroes, a bunch of super-smart MIT geeks. Before the dot.coms kidnapped the mathematical geniuses of MIT, here's what higher education produced from the dark underbelly of the Ivy League, where kids with brains, money, and bright futures were just as likely to be found gambling in a Paradise Island casino as putting in time in the library.

©2002 Ben Mezrich (P)2008 Simon and Schuster, Inc.

Pretty good story...Annoying narrator

The story is okay but the narrator keeps swallowing between every other sentence. Yuck.

Great read!

The book was very entertaining, and easy to follow if you were paying attention. It was a great story, yet didn’t compel me to go out and spend my life savings on gambling.

Better Than The Movie (21)

There seems to be a debate going in the reviews for this book, so I'll give you an answer: yes, the narrator does make occasional slurping noises. It's kinda annoying, but you'll be so absorbed in this work that you won't even notice. This is SO much better than the movie, and I loved the movie. Despite the occasional complaints of the narrator, Johnny Heller does a fantastic job reading this, his voice sounds young and yet somewhat mature, it fits perfectly. There were times in the story where I could actually feel my heart start to beat harder in my chest - I've never been this engrossed in an audiobook or podcast before. Fantastic. Just click buy right now, you won't regret it.

Narrator is fine,the hero sounds like cheesy d*ck

What did you like best about 21? What did you like least?

Narrator did fine job.
The counting system sounds fascinating.
The lead character, Kevin, sounds like he has every Donald Trump book in existence.
I don't think I would like him.
He really critiques his mentor's bad teeth.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

More strategy. I hate hearing about them sucking up to celebrities and cheerleaders.

Which scene was your favorite?

Learning to count cards and anything with the Mickey character.

Could you see 21 being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Never. . .uhh maybe Kevin Spacey. Kate Bosworth is too dumb to pull off the math whiz character but whatever.

Any additional comments?

Execution is fine. The lead character is not very likable.

A great book

A wonderful book that I found to be developmental and maturative for a young man coming of age such as myself. I found great relation with the author and protagonist and I further highly recommend this book.

Might have been good...I'll never find out.

I'll echo the sentiments of the previous reviewer. How could this awful narration passed muster as professional? I mean, really, it is beyond a distraction to hear this poor guy swallow a huge hair ball and wheeze his way past his own tonsils every few paragraphs. It gets to the point where you are waiting for it...just....waiting for it and then you realize - wham! You just missed two minutes of dialogue! I couldn't finish the book. Just awful! If the Audible editors have any integrity that will post this review as is - we'll see..

narrator ruins it

The story was good, but the narrator is constantly drinking, swallowing, etc and it is very off putting. I put up with it because the story was good, but it was barely worth the trouble. I will be avoid all books from this narrator in the future.

Not the best reading performance

I absolutely love the movie made and the book is even better but it is so hard to hear him read this. You can hear him swallowing the whole time and licking his lips. I can't do it anymore. If these sounds bother you too, don't do it. If these sounds don't bother you, he's a great reader. I just can't..

Not a good bet

This is the book behind the movie of the same name. It was a mediocre movie made from this mediocre book. It was a potentially good story regarding a group of MIT students organized by a prof to beat the casinos at 21. Unfortunately, it spent very little time going into exacty how the system worked - it just provided a superficial overview of the topic. This not only was a missed opportunity to provide an interesting look at statistics, memory techniques, strategy etc., it also missed an opportunity to relay how difficulty a task carrying out the system is. Don't read this book expecting to learn anything about how you actually 'beat the house' or how the casinos actually protect themselves against these ploys. The book did not sell out the ending as bad as the movie, but it just fizzles away at the end.

So,So

The story is interesting, but the reader is terrible and the language is pure 'street' talk. If you like the "F" word a lot -- you'll love this book. Otherwise, buy the book so you can skip over the trashy language