My dad thought he would teach me a lesson about gambling, so for my high school graduation, he gave me $500 and a ticket on the Star out of Galveston. He hoped I would lose all my money and learn a good lesson, but instead I cashed in for a little over $1,300. His plan completely backfired.

By the way, I remember thinking I was up much more because I mistook the 50cent chips for $50 chips. What did I know about chips back then? It's funny though that no 50cent chips have surfaced which looked like the ones used back then.