Busting Vegas: The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees 
Mezrich, the author of previous bestsellers about MIT gamblers and a colorful Ivy League trader in Japan, tells how Dukach's crew used a system that Vegas had never seen before. Dukach, the son of Russian immigrants who grew up in the poorest neighborhoods of New Jersey and Houston, was determined to climb out of poverty and help his family. His system didn't involve the commonly used techniques of card counting. Posing as an arms dealer or dentist, Dukach deliberately sought out blackjack dealers with small hands or thin fingers who frequently didn't conceal the bottom card when they shuffled the cards. Dukach would often manage to get a glimpse at the bottom card. This was highly significant because it was the card the dealer would hand the player to cut the deck. Dukach had practiced a technique to insert the card in a precise spot in the deck and then make big bets when the card was dealt. Dukach and his team ended up barred from casinos, threatened at gunpoint, and beaten in Vegas's notorious back rooms. This is a riveting yarn. —Alex Roslin
Reviews
1. It is not clear just how far ahead this team came out after it was all said and done. There were lots of facts and figures tossed around, but a sum total might have been nice at the end.
2. If profit was not the motive of the main character (Semyon), then what was his purpose in starting up a company to sell his strategies?
3. Some more discussion of the intelligence involved in catching people. When reading the book, the intelligence figures seemed more like people out of a James Bond novel instead of people that actually proceeded about the business of outsmarting people who tried to rip off casinos for a living.
4. A better denouement might have been in order. What happened to Semyon Dukatch? What about Victor?
The characters in this book were very bright. But then, not too bright. I'm not sure if this was deliberate on the author's part. Knowing how many people are killed over money and how little it takes to get killed over, how many people of such high IQ would go to *privately owned casinos* and then test the limits of what could happen there?
Good points:
1. The author did a great job with his characterizations. The characters were big enough, but not too big. Was the ringleader a compulsive gambler that just happened to have a very high IQ
2. The suspense was just enough. It was not drawn out too long, but it made the book hard to put down. (I finished the whole thing in an afternoon.)
Overall, this book is worth buying secondhand.
That said, the book was entertaining enough and read quickly. Many other reviewers have stated that they thought the story was "made up" in many parts. While I have no way of knowing that either way, the story DOES flow like a novel, complete with suspensful episodes such as when Semyon is taken at gunpoint in Atlantic City and when the group is fearful for their lives after being caught in the casino.
While this book can stand on its own merits, I did prefer the previous story from Mezrich. Perhaps that is because the card counting story was more "MIT-like" to me than a story about peeking at the dealers hole card and cutting the deck to a specified spot. To me, it doesn't take a genius to do that, though the idea itself was great. This book WILL make a good movie.
Four stars