I love E-bay ;)

Today I got the opportunity to pay off a huge chunk of my debt..and not because I've been saving up (in which I HAVE.) The actual reason I was able to pay off some of my debt is because the last time my parents came in town they decided to take Dana (sister) and me gambling with our crazy family!

It's a Friday night, the rents & Dana are in town, and we make a trip up the the Texas/Oklahoma border with our 2 aunts and uncle. Now I've been to Winstar once before with my family....not that thrilling. I think I came out $20 down from when I walked in the door, so eh, it's not really something to be thrilled or excited about...but it's fun just to play the penny slots. Dana however has NEVER been and she's really anticipating the excitement, so for me I'm just happy to go and see her have fun trying to win and figure everything out. Mrm (step-dad) gives up each $50 to gamble on for the evening...easy I could play on that for hours....WRONG! I think within the first hour all of that was gone- BOO! Dana however sits down at her first machine and wins around $60. She has no clue what she's doing so it's a bit comical to see her try and figure out what the heck is going on. So the evening goes on, Dana's up about $150 bucks, I'm still empty handed and enjoying the people watching. Grandma over there on her respirator is killin' the black jack table and I could sit and watch alllll night long. Dana is enjoying her winnings, but being the good sister she is won't stand for me to just sit and watch; she keeps on with "I'll give you some of my money! I want you to play and have fun!" Oh bless her heart she's so sweet :) Mrm finds us about 20 minutes later and has pitty on me for losing everything and hands me a $20 bill--"Go have fun," he says. Yeah that "fun" lasted about 10 minutes before it was all gone again... it just wasn't my night and this was proof that I was going home without ANYTHING.

All evening I had been noticing a certain E-Bay slot machine that looked like it could produce some good winnings. I walked by with Dana and realized that I had 2 $10 bills in my pocket from earlier in the day (this was MY own money.) I figured, why not take the risk, I'll play off of my own money instead of Mrm's. The machine had 5 players on each side and it had been packed all night. The very moment we walk by I spotted an open chair and slipped my way into it. I inserted one of my $10 bills into the machine. $0.50 cent min. bid, $2.50 max bid...I was hoping I wouldn't be out of money too quickly, remember I only have $10 in the machine. To my surprise within about 15 minutes I had won about $80... not bad. By this time mom had come and sat next to me and was enjoying herself (she was winning too.) Now the thing to know about this machine is that the more you bid the higher your multiplier goes up, and your multiplier comes in handy when there is a bonus round (10 free spins). Whatever you win on the bonus round you get #X (your multiplier) that amount. (i.e. bonus round you win $10 and you have a 3X multiplier...you win $30- make sense?) So mom is trying to figure out how to make her multiplier get bigger and I begin hitting my "Max-Bid" button trying to show her... as this is all happening the BONUS ROUND pops up and my multiplier is 10X...oh boy. There is a crowd behind us and we are all in anticipation of the numbers on the screen.

Spin #1: 250 credits ($2.50) ok, not bad...

Spin #2: 1000 credits ($10)...nice

Spin #3: 11,600 credits ($116)...AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!

Now remember I have a 10X multiplier....so literally $1000 is what I just won...CRAZY!! A bit surreal I have to admit, I would have never imagined winning that kind of money at a casino...but I did! By the end of the night I walked out of the casino with over $1400 in my pocket. Not bad...not bad at all! So today I finally paid off my line of credit at the bank and am one step closer to becoming debt free! WAHOO! Feels SO good! Thank you to Winstar Casino and my parents who take me gambling!