Straight Flush

Description

The New York Times bestselling author of The 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 a multi-billion-dollar on-line poker colossus - and what happened when the Feds shut down their operation, sending them on the run. 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 bar into one of the largest online poker companies in the world. At its height, the group's online empire was bringing in revenues of over a million dollars a day. 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 criminal. From setting up their operations in Costa Rica, to their efforts at building a veil of legitimacy in Vancouver; from embracing a hedonistic lifestyle of girls, drugs and money to becoming some of the richest people in the world; from engaging in operations against their competitors that sometimes escalated into near all-out wars to the legal battles that finally resulted in one of them heading to prison and another living life on the run - Straight Flush is an exclusive look behind the headlines of one of the biggest stories of the past decade.

Ben Mezrich is the New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House in addition to many other books, both fiction and non-fiction. The major motion picture 21, starring Kevin Spacey, was based on Bringing Down the House. The Oscar-winning film The Social Network was adapted from The Accidental Billionaires. Mezrich lives in Boston with his wife and son.

Mezrich writes some of the most exciting non-fiction books I've ever read ... This is a fascinating tale ... Mezrich's huge strength as an author is that he manages to bring characters to life so quickly. Within a few chapters, everyone who he's writing about has been vividly described and I was desperate to find out what happened to each of them * The Bookbag * Peppered with fast cars, cocktails, parties and beautiful women, this is an exhilarating ride. * Press Association, syndicated review * Ben Mezrich's Straight Flush reads like a thriller and it rattles along at breakneck speed ... It's a well written book about an internet start up and how it all went wrong. * Irish Times * Mesmerizing * Sorted magazine - 5 STARS * A pacy read * Sunday Business Post *