We have siblings Dax and Beth. Children of an abusive father who was more about money than family. While Dad is starting to show signs of dementia, the family is exceedingly well off from Dad’s business successes. But the money doesn’t erase what the kids and their mom endured.
Beth is (as I recall) an investigative reporter while Dax is a recovering alcoholic whose wife and child died a year or so ago. Dax now prefers fishing above all else. Beth has been looking into a connection to a member-only casino in London and a huge new casino opening soon in Vegas. She uncovers evidence that the London casino is laundering money for Vegas and doing so by cheating its customers who are too drunk or stupid to care that their winnings are being shorted and that the some of the games are fixed.
The heads of both casinos obviously don’t want all this to come out. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake as is the tentative opening date of the Vegas casino. Upon returning home to London from Panama after acquiring some crucial background details about the London operator, Beth is killed in a suspicious car accident. Then their dad is in another car accident and now almost fully incapacitated. Dax has to lay down the fishing pole, find care for his father and take up where Beth left off. A rich boy taking on the London and Vegas criminal heads of gambling.
His main tool for investigating is his very deep pockets and he spends freely on first class travel and even sets up his home office for roulette so he can study the game. A friend of a friend knows a guy who understands the inner workings of a casino (and if you’ve ever wondered yourself, Deadline Vegas if quite a good primer). This guy, himself a recovering addict, knows how casinos win, how they cheat, and how they can be beaten. Dax takes his no limit credit card and freely spends on tools to take down London and stop the Vegas opening.
This was a reasonable diversion for a week in the mountains. While the story was decent, it didn’t really grab me in and hold my attention for hours. Think my biggest issue was believing that a rich boy, despite his considerable bank account, would have the wherewithal to not only devise and pull off his plan but also to avoid getting himself destroyed by people who kill without blinking. But is certainly was a good way to see behind the curtains of just how a casino operates, legally and illegally.
ECD
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