Ben Mezrich

Ben Mezrich is an American author from Boston, Massachusetts, who started out writing fiction but now has made his foray into non-fiction. He graduated magna-cum-laude from Harvard in 1991. He has since published eight books which have together sold over a million copies in nine different languages. Some of his books have been written under the pseudonym Holden Scott.

Mezrich is best known for his first non-fiction work, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (ISBN 0-7432-4999-2). This book tells the story of a group of students from MIT who bet on blackjack games using a sophisticated card counting system, earning millions of dollars at casinos in Las Vegas and other gambling centers in the United States and the Caribbean.

In 2004, Mezrich published a new book called Ugly Americans : The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions (ISBN 0-06-057500-X). Also a nonfiction work, this book recounts the exploits of an American called Malcolm who was an assistant securities trader.

Mezrich is the co-host of season 3 of the GSN series The World Series of Blackjack and the World Blackjack Tour. He also represented Massachusetts as a contestant in the Sexiest Bachelor in America Pageant on Fox in 2000.

Mezrich is Jewish.

Bibliography

Fiction

• Threshold (1996, ISBN 0446605212)
• Reaper (1998, ISBN 0060187514)
• Fertile Ground (1999, ISBN 0061097985)
• Skin (a story set as an X-Files episode), (2000, ISBN 0061056448)
• Skeptic (written under the pen name Holden Scott), (2000, ISBN 0312969287)
• The Carrier (written under the pen name Holden Scott), (2001, ISBN 0312978588)

Non-fiction

• Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (2002)
• Ugly Americans : The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions (2004)
• Busting Vegas : The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees (2005, ISBN 0060575123)
• Rigged : The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil, From Wall Street to Dubai (2007)

Miscellaneous

• Fatal Error is a TBS premiere movie adaptation of his second book, Reaper, starring Antonio Sabato, Jr. and Robert Wagner.
• Skin was originally written as an X-Files episode, by the same author.

External links

• Ben Mezrich - the official site
• 2007 PokerMoments Interview with Ben Mezrich, focusing on his upcoming movie entitled 21
• Profile of Ben Mezrich, A 2006 Interview with Mezrich on the Inside of Vegas, published at URBANDADDY
• Alibris' Listing of Ben Mezrich's Works
• Twenty Questions with Ben Mezrich, a 1999 interview published at wigglefish
• Ben Mezrich: the telling of a true story, a 2004 interview focused on Bringing Down the House, published at Kuro5hin
• Ben Mezrich at Yahoo! TV

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