A brief history of gambling and poker with Poker Elmo – part 1.

For almost as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gambler. I guess it probably started on the day the school year ended in 3rd grade. It was one of those half-days that end the year, so we were out at noon. My parents took my brother and I to the Canterbury downs (now Canterbury park) race track. I mean, they did not want to make the mistake of having kids who did not know what it mean to hit a trifecta or the daily double. They gave us $20 – enough to bet $2 on every race. But there was a catch. We only got to keep the $20 if we bet on each race. The thrill of watching the horses run down the track was amazing. I ended up with a 15% ROI and a profit of $3 – which was a pretty big deal to me back then. I was hooked.

Through my grade school and early high school years, I gambled sporadically. There were occasional poker games, although those were mostly at large family gatherings so it was not too often. For a short period of time in 6th grade our class was heavy into “flipping quarters”. In this game, you and a friend each flip a quarter in the air. One calls “even” if they think they both will end up on the same side or “odd” if they think they will not. I picked up tells on most people as they had a certain rhythm, so I could figure out whether they would get heads or tails based on whether it was heads up or tails up in their hand. After I kept winning (up over $10 - big stakes for us) the other kids stopped playing. Then my gambling ended for a while – really, for several years.

In the summer before my senior year of high school, as an avid football fan, I decided it would be a great idea to start wagering on football games. I even convinced about a half-dozen of my friends to start as well. We decided it would be a great idea to enlist in a service that predicts games (we were not very smart). The cost was not too high, but the picks were lousy. That being said, it is not like I could pick winners much better. I took a relatively major loss for a high school student and pushed thoughts of professionally gambling out of my mind, at least for moment. In the back of my head, however, I knew I would be back. In did not take long before I jumped back in …..