The exclusive, pulse pounding follow up to Bringing Down the House -- where the stakes are higher, the players bolder, and the scheme more high risk.
For nearly five years, Semyon Dukach was known as The Darling Of Las Vegas -- the biggest high roller to hit sin city in decades, a hotshot kid with a seemingly unlimitted bankroll and an even more unlimited lust for big money action. He'd hit the city every weekend, a string of beautiful women at his side throwing cash at the blackjack tables in increasingly enormous amounts. Some believed he was a Russian arms dealer, others believed he was a pop star from Eastern Europe. But the truth was even more fantastic: He was a twenty one year old grad student who spoke five languages, an expert in computers and mathematics. He had a plan that would one day make him richer than anyone could possibly imagine. He used his genius to create a dangerous money making scheme called "Busting the Dealer" a scheme only a mathematics genius could have created. More dangerous than the simpler card counting he had been practicing with other pals bolder, badder, more risky "Busting the Dealer" was easier for the dealer to tell when one was practicing it.
With "Busting the Dealer," The Darling of Las Vegas quickly became a legend in the world of cards and casinos; the chronicle of his exploits are a Hollywood movie come to life. He became the only person banned from the island of Aruba. He was held, at gunpoint, in a cave in Monte Carlo and told by liaisons of the royal family that if he ever returned, he'd be murdered. After a death defying plane crash, he crawled into a burning Cessna on two broken feet to rescue four hundred thousand dollars won from an Atlantic City casino. He hit cruise ships, charity balls, wherever there was a game worth beating, anywhere in the world. Along the way, he fell in love with his best friend's girlfriend, was betrayed by his own teammates and nearly lost his life.
This is the startling true story of another group of MIT friends who changed the course of Vegas history.
