Busting Vegas is the second book by Ben Mezrich that covers the topic of MIT kids winning at blackjack. However, this book, while intriguing, merely sits in the shadow of the first best seller.
This book is advertised as non-fiction as well; however no dates are given for any of the events this time. And some of it feels a little… well, fabricated. My feeling is that while the story might be mostly true, a few liberties may have been taken in the telling.
The basic story is the same, but the techniques used to exploit blackjack have changed. This time, the students are not card-counters, and the methods they use fall more into a gray area that you might call cheating.
The basic math is, on average, the house has a 2% edge on you. If you are dealt an ace, that one hand actually had a 50% edge over the house. Thus, manipulating a deck so that you are dealt an ace would obviously be good for you. Similarly, because the dealer has to hit on so many marginal hands, manipulating the deck so that the dealer’s first hit is a face card is also very powerful.
The students practiced cutting cards, basically. They could cut an exact number of cards off of a deck. (In blackjack, players are offered the chance to cut.) If you knew what the 53rd card in the shoe was, you could count the number of cards as they came out. If a beneficial situation arises, you drastically raise your bet and wait for the good stuff to happen. Mathematically, it’s very sound. But in my opinion, it is pretty much cheating. Here are the three methods used:
1) Cutting to an ace – if the bottom card before the cut is an ace, cut an exact number of cards from the deck, then manipulate so you or a friend get the ace.
2) Card sequencing (usually to an ace) – keep track of a sequence of cards near an ace that comes out early, and is thus near the bottom of the discard pile. The bottom section of the pile is shuffled less frequently. With a dealer who shuffles precisely and predictably, you’ll be able to identify the sequence (with just a few cards in between) and thus know when the ace will fall.
3) Busting the dealer – if the bottom card before the cut is a ten, cut an exact number of cards from the deck, then manipulate it so the dealer gets the face card, especially if the dealer has a beneficial card showing, such as a 6. This one benefits all hands in play, not just one hand as in the previous two techniques, so the expected winnings are much higher.
I understand that the way the game is set up, the house has an edge, and that’s not “fair”. However, i don’t think that justifies cheating. Their argument is that they are just using their brains and skills to make sure they win. However, you could say the same thing for cheating at poker, with a technique like dealing off the bottom of the deck. That’s a skill, but if you are caught using it, you’ll get the shit beat out of you. Is it not the same thing? So you have a skill no one else has that will give you an edge, it doesn’t mean you should use it.
Near the end of the book, they also try to make the case that casinos are the ultimate Big Corporation and by stealing from the casinos, they were striking a blow on behalf of the Common Man. That’s just a bunch of rationalizing. Every person knows the casino has an edge, and people still willingly go inside and give up their cash. Yes, maybe it’s because of a dream of hitting it big and getting free money. But in general everyone knows the money they put in that slot machine is just gone.
Running a casino is a business. If it was set up so that it was “fair”, the casinos couldn’t make money. They would be foolish to offer any game where they didn’t have at least a slight edge.
But I digress.
The book was not as good as its predecessor. The writing was choppy and the team tension was not described well. Some incidents didn’t seem to fit in. And then there is the utter stupidity demonstrated when they continue with their scam way too long. While there was suspense about what would happen to them, i can’t say i was rooting for them since i didn’t think what they were doing was ethical.
Still, it was interesting to read about these techniques and get another glimpse at a high-roller lifestyle.