I caught the gambling bug early in life at a family gathering.

Nickle and dime 5 draw poker, and a game called ship-captain-crew were the culprits. I turned a begged-for-and-begrudgingly-given-because-you-will-just-lose-it dollar from my dad into an entire coffee mug of nickles dimes quarters with even a few dollars too. It was beginners luck to the max, because at the end, my uncles were earnestly trying to relieve me of my winnings (if only to teach me that you WILL lose when gambling also) but I broke em all of their pocket change, one by one.

After that night, I was the kid in 5th grade that would bring a deck to school to play during lunch, or at recess, or on the bus. I was totally hooked on gambling.

The next step in my progression was BASEBALL CARDS. I know right? Not gambling right? Well, it sure felt like it to me. I was fortunate enough to get a 1990 Upper Deck Ben McDonald error that at the time, was worth over 60 dollars. I opened the pack, found the card, turned around and traded it for like two boxes of upper deck packs.

The standard progression ensued, in high school we played all types of poker, with the insidious in-between/acey duecy always in the fold (and, a point of contention for many an argument, that game can conspire to break ALL players, putting all the money in the middle....I have seen it happen!).

That same Baseball card gamble feeling was later attained when I turned 18.......and delved into the crack cocaine of the lotto, scratch offs lol. I blew 50 to 100 dollars at a time on Fridays, all because I used to kill one ticket in particular (monopoly) but after that game was gone, all I did was lose lol obv.

My "gambling" reached its peak well before the Moneymaker online poker boom. we would gamble on anything and everything. Including what color car would get caught at the next stoplight, or whether a certain song will be found on the radio at an exact moment. Crazy bets, and it was a ton of fun.

When online poker came around, all of it stopped. I just played poker.

Now, god bless the USA, I don't even do that.

Fuck.

PS: The last uncle that tried to break me that night in 1984, still to this day considers me a lucky-lil-shit, and has bought pieces of me online, had me place bets when I went to Vegas, and always buys me lotto tickets as gifts (but we split it, you lucky lil-shit!). I really truly believe that our bond hearkens back to that family gathering, and that very first game of poker I played. Had I lost that night, who knows if I would even be here typing this.