VegasRy Book Review: Bust

Bust
By Adam Resnick

What happens when you give a degenerate gambler a blank check to bet, and lose, millions? Essentially, that’s what happened to Adam Resnick, who is now serving time in prison for wire fraud. A cautionary tale if there ever was one, it doesn’t delve too deeply into why the author gambled so much, it’s more a memoir than a character study.

Resnick was a gambler basically as long as he can remember, from poker games with his grandfather, to gambling in college; whether is was trips to Vegas from the University of Arizona, or local Indian casinos while at the University of Wisconsin. He was gambling every cent he could, and then some, but it was only a precursor to what was in store.

After college, Resnick became a successful businessman, making millions selling medical equipment. But the access to greater amounts of money only fed his addiction, and he began lying and pleading to anyone and everyone to keep gambling. From a Dateline NBC segment on Resnick:

In 1998, when they got married, Meredith didn’t catch on that Adam was still gambling all the time. Only now, he lied all the time, too.

Resnick: I would actually buy tickets to California and leave them on the counter in the kitchen so—saying, “Look, I’m going to California.” And take it a step further, I’d actually pay for a room at a hotel in California.

Of course he wasn’t really at that hotel, but at a casino in Vegas.

Resnick became a valued high roller at Las Vegas Casinos, being flown in on a private Gulfstream, and staying in his own private villa at the Bellagio. Only he didn’t seem to enjoy a second of any of it…gambling was his only concern. The comped shows, dinners, even women were only distractions, keeping him away from the tables.

Later in life, Adam became an insider at a bank in Chicago, which effectively gave him access to unlimited funds, which he predictably abused. The book opens with the Author driving to a Chicagoland Casino, needing to win 3 million dollars in order to save the bank, and himself. The collapse that follows is the exclamation point on an almost unbelievable tale of addiction.

The book is written in apologetic way, like the author knew what he was doing was wrong, but he did it anyway. Some of the numbers are mind-boggling, and we would have trouble believing the scale of his loss and deception, if it weren’t for the press coverage of his downfall. We recommend the book, not for the high-flying gambling tales (although there are quite a few), but for the look into a gamblers psyche. Bringing Down the House kicked off a series of gambling memoirs, and the sheer magnitude of Resnick’s story is what makes this better than most.


The Dateline segment is online here:

Buy Bust