Straight Flush - Brossura

Ben Mezrich

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0062277715 ISBN 13: 9780062277718

Casa editrice: William Morrow, 2013

Riassunto

The New York Times-bestselling author of Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House returns with the larger-than-life true tale of a group of hard-partying frat brothers who built an multi-billion-dollar on-line poker colossus--and what happened when the Feds shut down their operation and sent them on the run.

Bringing Down The House meets The Accidental Billionaires, 21 meets The Social Network-- Straight Flush is the true story of a group of University of Montana frat brothers who turned a weekly poker game in the basement of a local Missoula bar into one of the largest online poker companies in the world, valued in the billions. A true rags to riches tale, this is an adventure story on a scale that defies the imagination: at its height, Pete XXXX and his friends online empire was bringing in revenues of over a million dollars a day- putting their company s valuation on par with the behemoths of the Internet- while the entire management maintained an average age wavering between the late teens and early twenties. The industry they launched grew so huge so fast, and in such a grey area of US and international law, at first it was never really clear whether their actions were legal or a crime; in retrospect, even Pete now admits, they were either blatant criminals- or some of the greatest entrepreneurs the world had ever seen.

From setting up their operations in the exotic jungle paradise of Costa Rica, to their efforts at building a veil of legitimacy in Vancouver; from their tragic-comic quest to protect their rapidly growing earnings via banks in Belize and Switzerland, to the sophisticated systems of shadow-financing they built via international banks and secretive hedge funds around the globe; from embracing a hedonistic lifestyle of girls, drugs, and money to becoming serious businessmen, with bankrolls that made them some of the richest people in the world; from engaging in operations against their competitors that sometimes escalated into near all out wars, involving private security forces bristling with machine guns, to the legal battles that finally resulted in one of them heading to prison and another living life on the run, as a wanted fugitive--Straight Flush is an exclusive look behind the headlines of one of the biggest stories of the past decade.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

“The reigning cowboy of creative nonfiction.” (The Oregonian)

“A breakneck retelling of how a bunch of closely knit fraternity brothers built an online poker empire. ... Fast-paced and wild.” (Kirkus)

“A near-perfect specimen of pulp nonfiction.” (New York Times)

“The action is nonstop. ... Mezrich follows [the] friends from their University of Montana frat house to Costa Rica and Canada as the young entrepreneurs’ extravagant lifestyle of booze, fast cars, and hot women spirals into death threats, auto accidents, 24-hour bodyguards, and federal indictments.” (Booklist)

“Engrossing. ... I can’t wait for the movie.” (Boston Globe)

L'autore:

Ben Mezrich graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991. He has published twelve books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Accidental Billionaires, which was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film The Social Network, and Bringing Down the House, which has sold more than 1.5 million copies in twelve languages and became the basis for the Kevin Spacey movie 21. Mezrich has also published the national bestsellers Sex on the Moon, Ugly Americans, Rigged, and Busting Vegas. He lives in Boston.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: William Morrow
• Data di pubblicazione: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0062277715
• ISBN 13: 9780062277718
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 288