Poll: Did you gamble as a minor?

Did you gamble as a minor? Where, what and how in comments. What decade was it as well.

I ran a dice game in 6th or 7th grade.

I my parents always took me to this backwoods county fair in northern PA where they'd have a dice wheel where you could put quarters or dollars down.

They also had a game where you could toss rings onto a a block with pocket knives stuck in. If you got a ring over a knife, you won the knife. There was no age restriction on winning a pocket knife. Some teenagers stabbed each-other one year, but they didn't shut down the game or anything.

70s: family poker game for money, my age 12. 5-10-25
also bet the dogs thru my parents a couple of times, maybe $20 worth each time.
bj with friends from about 17, maybe a dozen times, .25/hand usually.
cribbage for $, .10/pt, age 19, factory lunchroom.
Slots at 18, across the river where it was legal, but age later raised. Once, home from college.

Early nineties played wheel games, black jack, craps, etc., at church festivals. Then a few years later played scratch off tickets purchased by clerks and machines. When at Mountaineer once, played slots when they were trackside only. Even once filled out a slip for a refund when a video black jack machine malfunctioned when it stayed instead of hitting or hit instead of standing, unsure. It was funny because I'm pretty sure I even told them I was a minor and the attendant didn't care, she thought I was entitled to a refund and might have even told me just to keep that fact quiet. Things are definitely different these days at casinos and church festivals, I have no idea about lottery sales because I dont pay attention.

Not really. A few Derby pools and the like. My family didn't play cards, nor did most of my friends. Won $6 playing BJ one study hall when a guy offered a game. He was ignorant. BJ paid 2-1, split aces as many times as you could, and split Ace/10 paid 2-1, 5 card Charlies paid 3-1 and most importantly, if you busted and the dealer busted, it was a push. This was 1974 and my after school job paid $1.65 an hour.
The next week, he changed the rules and I stopped playing. A week or so later, he got busted for promoting gambling, kicked off the soccer team and suspended a couple of days.
I graduated from HS while still 17, and that summer we spent Friday nights at Roosevelt Raceway, but I hardly bet. Sometimes I'd split a $2 place or show.
Did have one nice win by accident. OTB used letters, track used numbers. I used to place bets for some friends as I looked 18 and they didn't. I had an OTB program with me at the track and wanted to bet the 1 horse, so I said A, the clerk thought I said 8, and gave me the 8 horse. #1 was a heavy favorite, so the 8 wins and pays $46 on a $2 bet. I think I had $6 or $8 dollars bet on him. It was a months salary.
Played those stupid quarter waterfall games a bit. Had one nice win, maybe $25 but lost much more than that overall.

I can't remember when I started playing cards for money, but it would have to have been around age 10. I ran a weekly football pool (just among family) at 14. I also remember playing pull tabs at church bazaars as a youngster as well.

At 16, I wandered through the casino on an Alaska cruise ship and dropped a few quarters in the slot machines. Nobody seemed to care. However, when I tried this on a Bahamas day cruise ship the next year, security was all over me as soon as I would step into the casino. Also about that time, Florida began to allow minors at their parimutuel tracks. I would go to the dog track and have my uncle or sister place my bets.

This was all in the 80's.

Oh hell, I picked "no" because all I was thinking about was casino gambling. I started out playing penny a point Gin Rummy with my dad, I must have been 10. I think he did it as a way to not pay me my dollar a week allowance, until I got good enough to win about half the time.

My cousin and I set up weekend poker games, I wasn't old enough to drive then so it was the mid 60s. And the church carnival played Big 6 and dealt cold hand poker, and let everyone play those.

Poker games with friends as teenagers for sure.

Marbles ... a skill-based game ya know, and could be played for 'keeps' ... pre-teen that

I remember being quite surprised that kids could play a game of chance that was set up at the county fair. They rolled a volleyball down a ramp and you bet on what hole it would land on. I realize now there was a pretty good chance you could take some stats and do something with them, but turning it +EV would be hard. Paid even money and they had one hole that meant 'they won'. Seems like there weren't that many holes either.

Looking back over 50 years, I would get a 75 cent ( 3 quarters) daily lunch allowance. One of my classmates in music class would challenge me to either flip quarters calling odd or even until one of us went broke. As a growing kid, it wasn't fun or funny not being able to eat lunch on losing days. If that wasn't enough, we would pitch quarters against the wall in the back room just before class started. Of course, that was skilled based! After losing countless meals, we both decided to stop. We were never caught that entire 8th grade school year. I must have been influenced from both parents as my dad would sneak into back alley pinball galleries in Oakland Ca. at the age of 16 or 17 and try to rig them for payouts. I think he got caught and that ended his venture. Shortly thereafter, he would drive 6 hours to Reno in his 39 Chevy and play nickel slots and keno. At 18, he hit a keno ticket for $400 and thought he was set for the future. He still plays keno and video poker (deuces wild) at age 88. I picked up on craps in the mid 1980s and won over $2,000 in my first three Atlantic City trips. Needless to say, it got me started. I quit gambling in 1990 and would go watch my dad play $1 video poker. He seemed to do very well on the trips I tagged along. I decided to try video poker in the late 1990s and managed to hold my own without getting beat up too badly. I hit a progressive for $8,740.42 and decided it was the game to play. I mean, where else could you bet $5 and get this kind of return? Keno? I never liked Keno so I didn't play it. I could go on and on. Yes, I took chances with money as a minor and it has influenced my decisions over the years. I have won a lot of money but surely lost a lot more. To me, gambling was more of a competitive challenge of will and determination to come out on top, just as it was pitching quarters at 13.

No. The only money I had as a kid (which wasn't much) went towards toys and video games and trading cards. I didn't start gambling until my 20's.

No. Assuming that flipping baseball cards in grade school doesn't count as gambling. I was 17 my entire freshman year at college, but I honestly don't remember playing poker for money - all of us freshman were on a mandatory university food plan and so most of us had very little cash on us. I was 22 or 23 the first time I entered a casino.