Bringing Down The House goes Hollywood
The release of a Hollywood motion picture that has "blockbuster" written all over it.
In its abbreviated form, that's the sequence of events that changed the lives of Ben Mezrich and Jeffrey Ma.
Later this week, when the motion picture "21" premieres, Mezrich's and Ma's story will be the world's to see, rather than just read. The movie is "inspired" by Mezrich's best-selling book "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions." The book is an all-encompassing story about the secret life that Ma once lived as a card-counting extraordinaire. It's a delectable tale, one that features gambling, sex, multiple trips to Las Vegas and money. Lots of money.
But the manner in which this entire scenario came about is just as intriguing as the actual story line of the book and movie. There were plenty of coincidences and surprises along the way as well as a bond that was formed between these two men that will resonate for years to come.
"We're kind of tied together forever by this whole thing," says Mezrich, who, since the release of "Bringing Down the House," has gone on to write three other best-selling non-fiction books that all follow a similar path. "It's changed my career dramatically and it's definitely changed Jeff's life. We'll be linked together forever, in that respect."
But, just like a good book, let's start at the beginning. Because without Jeffrey Ma and the rest of his MIT blackjack team, there is no best-selling book and certainly no movie.
The subject: Jeff Ma (a.k.a. Kevin Lewis)
Just ask Ma, who gets peppered with questions the minute he is unmasked as the central figure of the book.
"It happens all the time," Ma says with a laugh. "I don't mind it. It doesn't bother me. In fact, it's kind of flattering that so many people want to ask me about it."
The title of the book says it all. While attending MIT, Ma, who used an alias in the book because he wasn't sure what the reaction would be, is recruited to join a blackjack team at the school that is funded by a former professor. The group makes regular visits to Las Vegas and other casinos around the world and uses an intricate card-counting scheme, working together to take the casinos for anywhere between $3 to $5 million over the course of four to five years. But a divide amongst the team develops and, in the end, they are ratted out by a source that is still unknown to this day. Casinos eventually start to bar the team from playing and along the way there are plenty of dicey moments.
"It was a crazy time of my life; it's almost like it wasn't really happening," says Ma, who graduated from MIT in 1994 with a degree in mechanical engineering. "While we were going through the whole thing, it always seemed like it would be a great idea for a book or a movie. But you never think that something like that would ever really happen."
Once Ma decided to retire from the card-counting business, he went on to try and lead a normal life. He worked as the technology lead for a couple of Internet startups and was an options trader on the Chicago Board of Options Exchange. But the concept for a book/movie was still brewing in his mind, and when he met Mezrich, he decided to offer up his idea.
The author: Ben Mezrich
It's not that Mezrich was some fledgling writer living paycheck-to-paycheck before he became familiar with Ma and his remarkable story. The New Jersey native and Harvard graduate had already finished a few novels. One of them, "Reaper," was made into a television movie starring soap opera heartthrob Antonio Sabato Jr. Mezrich had also written a stand-alone thriller for the TV show "The X-Files."
"I was having varying success," he says. "But nothing like what came about after 'Bringing Down the House.'"
The character in the book named "Jill," who was a member of the MIT team, was a common friend of Mezrich and Ma. She went to Harvard with Mezrich and introduced the two on a couple of occasions. One night at an Oscar's party in Boston, Ma pitched Mezrich with his story.
"I didn't know what to think at first," Mezrich says. "All I knew was that this kid had a lot of money for an MIT student."
"I think he was only marginally interested when I first told him," Ma remembers. "But then we took him to Vegas to show him up close (up) how it all worked and that got his attention pretty quickly."
Mezrich spent the next two months traveling with Ma to Las Vegas and, naturally, he was blown away. He strapped money to his body and nervously passed through airport security. He partied with high rollers, stayed in the most lavish suites the city has to offer and he won his fair share of money at the blackjack tables. In essence, he was living the life of Jeff Ma.
Mezrich spent approximately the next three months writing the book. At one point he remained in Vegas for nearly a month, staying at a different casino each night just to get a feel for the different aspects of each one. Simon & Schuster agreed to publish it and Mezrich was hopeful the book would do well.
A few months before the book was published, Mezrich wrote a synopsis of the story for Wired magazine. Somehow Kevin Spacey stumbled upon the article and was immediately intrigued. Mezrich was at home one afternoon when his phone rang and on the other end was Spacey.
"I didn't believe that it was him," Mezrich recalls with a laugh. "I talked to him for about five minutes, but I never really actually believed it was him. I just figured it was the MIT kids pulling a prank.
"I kind of laughed and took his number and told him I'd call him back. When I got off the phone I Googled him and was able to track down his assistant at the time, Dana Brunetti (who ended up co-producing "21" with Spacey and Michael De Luca). He told me that, yes, Kevin was trying to track me down and he was very interested in talking about buying the movie rights."
Suddenly, Mezrich had a good feeling about his new book. Getting a phone call from an Oscar-winning actor who wants to woo you with a movie deal when your project is still in manuscript form is a decent sign that good things would follow. And they did. "Bringing Down the House" spent 57 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and has sold one million copies while being translated into 19 languages.
"We had no idea it would be such a big hit; I think the first printing was for about 12,000 copies," says Mezrich. "The whole gambling thing wasn't huge at the time. This was certainly well before gambling became so main stream and all the online stuff became so big. You didn't see poker on TV all the time."
But before the book even made it to the shelves, Mezrich flew out to Los Angeles to meet with Spacey to see what he had to offer. His first night on the West Coast, Mezrich was a guest of Spacey's at the Playboy Mansion.
"He kind of had me sold right there and then," laughs Mezrich.
The movie: "21"
This Friday, five years after that fateful phone call from Kevin Spacey, "21" will makes its premiere when it opens the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival in Austin, Texas. The film, which is a Columbia Pictures production, is scheduled to be released in U.S. theaters on March 28. In addition to Spacey, the film also stars Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth and Jim Sturgess.
Ma spent a lot of time with Sturgess, the actor who portrays him in the movie, while the director, Robert Luketic of "Legally Blonde" fame, hung out with Mezrich for two weeks before the movie began filming some of its scenes in Boston.
As he stood on the set of "21," Ma got the same feeling he got when he first read "Bringing Down the House."
"It was surreal," says Ma. "It's really a unique experience. You still don't believe it's really happening and then you sit down and read the book or, in this case, watch the movie being produced and it just blows you away."
In February, Ma was got a chance to see the movie at a private screening where he sat right next to Fishburne, who plays the head of a casino's security team.
"It's a fun movie to watch," Ma says. "There's been a little piece of Hollywood thrown into the mix, but that's OK. Any time you take a seven-year span of my life and condense it into 300 pages and then you take those 300 pages and condense it into two hours, you're going to have to change a fair amount.
"But there are some scenes in the movie that are so eerily reminiscent of what we did and what we went through, it gave me goose bumps. They did a fantastic job of capturing the different moments at the tables and the amount of tension we were feeling. It's pretty amazing."
Mezrich is also thrilled with the finished product.
"In my mind, getting Kevin Spacey involved from the beginning pretty much ensured that it was going to turn out great," Mezrich says. "He's a phenomenal guy. He's a genius. He really was a pleasure to work with throughout the entire process.
"I definitely feel very fortunate because not a lot of authors get to be involved with something like this. It's been a pretty amazing experience."
The future
Since coming public with his identity, Ma, now 35, has worked the speaking engagement circuit where he "explores how to use quantitative analysis to improve business decision-making and the bottom line," according to his publicity agency.
The San Francisco-based company was created in 2005 and dubs itself as "a fast-growing challenger in sports media." It features two networks: ProTrade, which is a form of fantasy sports where users buy and sell athletes in a manner much like the stock market based on their performance, and SocialSports, a social networking application on Facebook that "allows fans to share their sports passion by declaring their allegiance to their favorite teams."
Ma, who is also in the process of developing a series of blackjack videos
Las Vegas about eight to 12 times a year. His face is still well known by the casinos so he is barred from playing blackjack. But he enjoys the craps tables and wagering on college basketball and the NFL. He's also a pretty decent poker player, as Mezrich can attest to. In February when Ma was back on the East Coast, he won a poker tournament that organized as part of Mezrich's birthday weekend.
"I still love to gamble; that hasn't changed," says Ma, who also recently launched the Web site, www.kevinlewisblackjack.com. "It's just that I can't play blackjack anymore."
Can the game still be beaten?
"Absolutely," he says without hesitation. "It's more difficult these days and not necessarily because of the book, but because of how much my team and the other MIT teams hit the casinos. But with the right mix of smarts and patience it can still be beaten for sure."
As for Mezrich, it turns out that "21" won't be his last foray into the movie business. Spacey has also bought the rights to two of Mezrich's other books: "Rigged: The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil, From Wall Street to Dubai" and "Ugly Americans: The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions." Mezrich will act as the executive producer for "Rigged."
In addition, Mezrich's other best-selling blackjack book, "Busting Vegas: The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought Casinos to Their Knees" about another blackjack team that played right around the same time or before Ma's group, is also under agreement to head to the big screen.
All three of those books required the same kind of up-close and intimate research that Mezrich conducted with Ma for "Bringing Down the House."
"When I research my books, I become part of the person I'm writing about," he says. "I think people like the books because they read like a thriller, but they also happen to be a true story. I also think they are about a lifestyle that we'd all like to live. There are casinos, money and Las Vegas. The kind of life that's just one big party.
"Guys don't want to read about relationships or dating tips. They want to read about Vegas."
Mezrich, who got married last year, lives in Boston, but is constantly traveling. He makes frequent trips to Europe and Asia and, yes, he's still a regular in Vegas, usually landing on the Strip at least once a month. He always gets a kick out of people who think he's a master gambler because of his books.
"I think doing all of that research helped me realize what it takes to be a better player, but I wouldn't say I'm better because of my books," he says.
Apparently, a certain group of poker players at a casino in early February would disagree with that statement.
Mezrich, who plays in a weekly poker game with some MIT kids and likes to occasionally play online, was sitting at a low-stakes
He ended up cleaning out the table and winning $1,000. But then word somehow leaked that he was the author of "those MIT blackjack books."
"Everybody refused to play with me again," says the 39-year-old with a chuckle. "It was really amazing that they actually all thought that I was some kind of card shark
I just got up and left. It just wasn't worth trying to explain how ridiculous it really was for them to think that."
Mezrich recently finished a "futuristic" fiction novel about the Avian Flu. But he says his "bread and butter" are the non-fiction books where he actually lives the part of his protagonist.
In fact, he's working on another one right now.
"It's a secret so I can't say exactly what it's about," he says coyly. "But I will say this: It's got a Las Vegas theme."
Now there's a novel concept: Las Vegas, Ben Mezrich and a book. Somewhere, Kevin Spacey is smiling.
To preview the trailer of "21," click here
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Gary's gambling "career" began in junior high when he and his friends would buy hundreds of pieces of bubble gum and use them as the stakes in a weekly poker game played in a friend's garage. The bubble gum eventually turned into poker chips and thus an avid card player was born.
Texas Hold'em is a personal favorite, but if he had his way, Gary would just as soon play dealer's choice all night and partake in a variety of games like Seven-Card No Peek, Guts or Five-Card Draw with a qualifier. In addition to playing cards, another of Gary's interests is golf, a game that allows his two favorite hobbies to collide quite naturally.
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Hong Kong people are living in the United Kingdom. Three in September 2005 was arrested on January 15, 2007 tomorrow.
Police said that the trio within the next few months using the same trick defraud at least six casinos. Three were driving a white van arrived at casinos, the two entered the casino playing poker and the other a rear car. Enter the casino in the sleeves or handbags containing a micro-lens, the Dealer licensing secretly photography.
White van parked soliciting long suspected
Through electronic transmission devices, casinos can be seen outside the party in the licensing process, broadcast live, and slow motion playback capture Dealer grid by hand. Since filming from different angles, poker points can be seen clearly. Then people outside the party venue through headphones convey how gambling.
The female defendant WANG Qi (transliteration) in the Dusi, the odds were as high as 80% within a week she put a bargaining chip in the hands of the 31,000 pounds (about 470,000 Hong Kong dollars) to double the 69,000 pounds (about 1.06 million Hong Kong dollars), WANG Qi such good luck with a few casinos are reportedly big losers are the days of a white van parked at the casino, all the indications are the authorities doubt the casino.
The prosecution said that WANG Qi was originally a London gambling industry respected gamblers, but because the loser in the casino property, so revenge. Cross said that defence lawyers, because WANG Qi in the casinos lose a lot of money, so she not aware of this practice and have any moral issue, the other three are debt-ridden, and difficult to extricate. Three had been to various gambling has recently been to Las Vegas together, but it is not known whether the fraud.
Maximum two years, nine prisoners not into casino
Three were convicted of the 1846 Gaming Act section 17, the trial judge said: The old casino in 1000 might have more than 150 years of history, but you ways of crime in Congress to pass this legislation simply unimaginable. Judge - when that case: It is a sophisticated and distinctive system, a result you almost win grasp, but you are not so smart, because ultimately not escape justice.
3 in the December 12, 2005 pleaded guilty to the charge, Lin (transliteration), was sentenced to imprisonment for nine months, WANG Qi and Cengfanliang (transliteration), was sentenced to probation and 150 hours of community service order, three people have been casinos in the blacklist , within two years not be allowed to enter casinos.
40 minutes to win the 34 as Dushen
September 13, 2005 night, WANG Qi Lin and the industry Shenxinbaopeng into Kensington SAR casino VIP Room, sitting opposite Dealer asked to play three card (three-cardpoker), Wang Bi-just 40 minutes to win the internal 44, 34, won 3,520 pounds (about 5.4 million), luck is different from ordinary people.
In fact WANG Qi earlier in the casino win big money, the casino has been questionable and to notify the police, the police believe that the trio of the two men is technical director , and used in the gambling industry engaged in London The WANG Qi dressed, and have won big money is a matter of course.
Three people were arrested at the scene after the body was WANG Qi 6,020 pounds (approximately 9.2 million), a receiver and headphones, handbags have a micro lens and the forest industry are 525 pounds (about 8,000 yuan), micro-cuff Lens, waist possession of the two receivers, a very difficult to detect wear ear headphones.
Police rushed white passenger and freight car Cengfanliang is destroy the evidence, but the police eventually successful reorganization video, and the car has two screens, a player used to real-time segment and the other for the slow-playback Dealer hand. Police also found three others in a number of incriminating evidence, including a box of the best shooting position to assess the tape.
London police Warner said: These three people to use this sophisticated technology in each casino can be a big fish, either was arrested at the scene of the crime really hard, I believe this is the first ever high-tech casino scam .
On the map: WONG female defendant (right) and Lin Sheng male defendant (left), wear concealed headphones, listen to the vans party spot of the road.
On the map: micro-camera placed right, peeping sent to the Dealer by the licence.
On the map: white vans hiding in the slow-party monitors in the replay film clips, immediately stole see licensing Road told the party to decide whether or not to add to licensing.
In related news: The recent hoax cases gambling List
December 14, 2006: A woman Dealer casinos in Macau collusion its Hong Kong boyfriend, imitate Hong Kong TV drama Casino Fengyun Production in the dollar chip is not a dollar, but a dollar more than 3, 3 days crime over 40 times, obtaining a total of at least 50 million Hong Kong dollars of public funds, the two eventually were arrested.
November 25, 2006: 6 Chinese Jupiter in the Gold Coast, Australia, playing baccarat at the casino from 1000 jointly to really fake licences for licensing control gambling house, and within 50 minutes won 765,000 Australian dollars (about 4.62 million Hong Kong dollars) , a 1000 Hollywood approach is akin large Ocean s , but ultimately not escape the net of justice, was sentenced to 3-4 years.
November 24, 2006: Turkey and the German men in the Sands Macao Casino play Pirates of the Caribbean Poker, a 1000 arrested three people suspected of using a nail in the handheld poker engraved on the mark, and the swindling of about 70,000 Hong Kong dollar casino .
On the information: three card is trendy games are played
3 Hong Kong 1000 Pianjian depend on the old three card (three-cardpoker), as games are played simple, win big, but because of too many things to win defeated. Three card in the United States in recent years is quite popular casinos, the actual contains two games are played, respectively, as more than one (pairplus) and gambling bet (ante-and-play), the player can choose to play them A, or both play.
More than one pair of very simple games are played, players each have been allocated three licences, the combination of size by licensing decision odds, the largest is Flush with, followed by 3 , - , Flower and one pair of odds from 1 to a maximum compensation of a compensable 50.
Bet gambling games are played, players first place bets by licensing option abstained lost a bet or bets doubled, as he will choose the latter three possibilities, the first is Makers Her licence no one or more such players will be awarded the original bets; If the banker is a Queen or more but less than players, the players have to redouble our bets, but if Makers win, players will lose swap all redouble our bets.
(Xiaojian / establishment)
