There's something about a Canadian January that makes you willing to try just about anything. The cold doesn't just sit outside your door, it waits there, patient and mean, daring you to step out. By the third week of straight minus-thirty, I was losing my mind. My usual distractions, the gym, the movies, even just walking to the coffee shop, all required suiting up like an astronaut. I was stuck inside, staring at the same four walls, running out of shows to watch and patience to spare.
My buddy Marc saved me, sort of. He called me up one night, his voice crackling through the speaker, and said, "Dude, you need to get on this poker thing. I've been playing for a week. It kills the time." I told him I didn't know how to play poker. He laughed and said, "Neither do I. That's not the point. Just do the beginner tables. It's something to do." He mentioned a site he'd been using, said it took him five minutes to
open vavada account and he was playing within the hour. I was skeptical, but I was also desperate. I told him I'd think about it.
I thought about it for exactly one more day. That was a Tuesday. By Wednesday night, I was so bored I could feel my brain rattling around in my skull. I pulled up the site, and Marc was right. It was disgustingly easy. Email, password, a click here and there, and suddenly I had an account. I didn't even deposit anything at first. I just wandered around the lobby, looking at all the games, the tournament listings, the live dealer rooms. It felt like a casino without the smoke and the sad people at slot machines. I liked it.
I threw in fifty bucks the next day. Not because I expected to win, but because I needed something, anything, to break up the monotony of winter. I started with poker, like Marc suggested. And he was right about that too. I was terrible. I lost hands I should have folded, called bets I should have run from. But it was fun. It was engaging. For an hour or two each night, I wasn't thinking about the cold or the isolation. I was thinking about bluffs and community cards and whether the guy across the virtual table was as clueless as me.
That went on for about a week. I'd lose a little, win a little. My fifty bucks became forty, then sixty, then thirty. It was entertainment money, and I treated it that way. But then, on a Sunday night when the wind was howling so loud it rattled my windows, I got bored of poker. I wanted something faster, dumber. I wandered into the slots section, drawn by the bright colors and promise of instant gratification. I found a game called Dragon's Luck, all red and gold with Chinese symbols. I didn't understand it, but I liked the way it looked.
I started betting small, just a dollar a spin. The game had this feature where dragons would appear on the reels and breathe fire, turning symbols wild. It was satisfying to watch, even when I lost. And I lost a lot at first. My balance dipped to twenty bucks. I told myself I'd play until I hit zero, then call it a night. That's when the first dragon showed up. Not just one, but three of them. The reels caught fire, literally, and the wins started stacking. Twenty bucks became fifty. Fifty became one-twenty. One-twenty became three hundred.
I sat up straight. The wind was still howling outside, but I couldn't hear it anymore. My whole world had shrunk to the screen in front of me. The dragons kept coming. Another bonus round triggered, and this one was different. It was a picking game, where I had to choose from a grid of golden coins. Each coin revealed a prize. I picked one, and it doubled my bet. I picked another, and it added fifty bucks to my balance. I picked a third, and the screen exploded with confetti. The grand prize. I'd hit the top bonus.
When the dust settled, I was looking at a balance of just over forty-seven hundred dollars.
I didn't move. I didn't breathe. I just stared at the number, waiting for it to change, to correct itself, to reveal itself as a glitch. But it didn't. It sat there, solid and real, a small fortune by my standards. Forty-seven hundred bucks. That was a new used car. That was a vacation. That was six months of mortgage payments on my little house. I felt dizzy, lightheaded, like I'd stood up too fast. I cashed out immediately, my hands shaking so badly I had to click the withdrawal button three times.
The money hit my bank account two days later. I remember checking my balance on my phone, seeing the extra four grand sitting there, and having to pull over to the side of the road. I just sat in my cold car, engine running, staring at the screen. I thought about all the things I could do with it. Pay off debt. Fix the roof. Buy something stupid and frivolous. In the end, I did a little of each. I paid off my credit card. I fixed the leak in the bathroom. And I bought myself a nice firepit for the backyard, something to look forward to when the thaw finally came.
That firepit became a symbol for me. Not of gambling, but of possibility. Of the idea that sometimes, when you're stuck in the coldest, darkest part of the year, something warm can find you. I still play occasionally, mostly poker with Marc. We have a standing Tuesday night game now, just the two of us at virtual tables, trash-talking each other while we lose small amounts of money. It's become our thing. And every time I log in, I remember that Sunday night. The howling wind, the dragons, the moment everything changed.
I don't expect it to happen again. I know better than that. But I also don't regret it. That win didn't ruin me, didn't send me down some dark path. It just gave me a little breathing room, a little warmth in the middle of a long, cold winter. And sometimes, that's all you need. Just a little warmth to remind you that spring is coming.
