'Bringing down the house' by Ben Mezrich

'Bringing Down the House': The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions 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.

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.

Controversy

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. The Boston Globe followed up with a more detailed story on April 6, 2008.

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.

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.

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.

Bogus Events

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.
* Use of Strippers to Cash Out Chips. Also according to Aponte and Irvine, 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. 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," 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.
* Theft of $75,000. One MIT player, Kyle Schaffer, did lose $20,000 when it was stolen from a desk drawer. 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").
* 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).