I’ve been 21 years old for about six months, and I’m looking for the right way to celebrate my newfound freedom. Some people go to bars, but to me this is a waste of time. Why would I spend my hard-earned cash on drinking piss-water that poisons my liver? Not interested.

I saw my freedom as an opportunity to make some easy money. I would look for it at the same place any self-respecting broke college student would: the wheel of chance.

If I got lucky, I could alleviate my crippling college debt. I’m fixing to finish my education at Santa Rosa Junior College next year, but I’ve found that the JC is more inclined to let me enroll in classes when I pay for them.

In case you missed it, the living wage in Santa Rosa is about $27 an hour for a 40-hour work week. Considering I make nowhere close to that, I had to get creative.

Last fall, my good friend and former Oak Leaf editor Sal Sandoval-Garduno ventured to the Mojave Desert in search of gold to pay for his tuition. I haven’t seen him since so it must have worked out for him.

Inspired by Sal’s journey, I had to get-rich- quick quicker than it would take to get to the Mojave, so I needed another, even more lucrative idea.

Sports betting

It came to me while I was watching a baseball game on my favorite, extremely legal and legitimate streaming service, MethStreams. I picked a random team to watch, the Cincinnati Reds, and there it was — FanDuel Sports Network.

FanDuel, in addition to broadcasting for 40 major U.S. sports teams, is one of the largest sports-betting companies in the country.

Of course! Why slouch on my couch just watching games when I could bet on them and pull in that sweet, passive income?

Sadly, FanDuel’s sportsbook isn’t available in California, but I found a workaround. My “daily fantasy” app of choice in my state is PrizePicks.

Because state law prohibits sports betting, bigger platforms like FanDuel, DraftKings and BetMGM can’t legally operate here. PrizePicks, however, is classified as a fantasy sports app — where you use knowledge of sports to set a lineup of players, as opposed to simply betting on an outcome.

It’s little more than a loophole, but I respect that. Good on them. Good on me. Time to run it up.

I made my deposit and looked to the board, but the answer was already on my MethStreams screen.

Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz — power, speed, finesse. The man is baseball perfection incarnate. A five-tool demigod.

Over 1.5 combined hits, runs and RBI? He could do it with two hits, or a hit and an RBI, or an RBI and a run scored. The possibilities were endless. It was a gimme — practically free money.

Then the second leg of the parlay revealed itself, like the first sight of a proud lighthouse bringing sea-battered sailors ashore: Diamondbacks third baseman Eugenio Suárez, also at 1.5 over combined hits, runs and RBI. Through the first week of the season he led the league in home runs. Another gimme. I was cooking.

I felt especially confident in De La Cruz — so much so that I doubled down. In the next parlay, I locked him in at over 1.5 total bases and added Vinny Capra over 0.5 total bases. Total bases were easy. A single is one total base, a double is two and so on.

If De La Cruz hit on the first bet, he’d almost certainly hit on this one. Capra had a hit the day before, so he just had to do it again. One blooper over the second baseman’s head. That’s all.

For the grand finale, I pivoted to basketball. I took Brook Lopez over 22 combined points, rebounds and assists. The last game against the Suns he went 22-6-6. This time, he was the Joel Embiid-less 76ers. It was a no-brainer.

To close it out, I chose Ja Morant at over 24.5 points. Morant had scored fewer than 26 points just once in his last eight games. After his “shooting troubles” last year, Morant was back to his bucket-getting self.

I locked in my picks and leaned back, certain I’d just secured a $165 payout. Not much, sure — but enough to bankroll my next move.

Then the games started. De La Cruz? 0-for-4 — Suárez? One hit, zero runs, zero RBI — Capra? 0-for-2 — Lopez? 17 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist — two shy of cashing. Only Morant hit, putting up 30, but it was too little, too late.

I walked away with nothing. A goose egg. Zilch. My dreams of getting it out the mud? Shattered.

Therein lay the problem: I was overconfident. Who was I to think I could decode the divine will of the sports gods? If I wanted to succeed in my quest, I had to let go of my delusions about strategy and surrender myself to fate.

I had to go to the casino. Graton Casino & Resort called like a siren’s song, and I was a sea-battered sailor.

The casino

It was a sight to behold. As a wee lad, I held a grudge against Graton. Every time I rode in the car through Rohnert Park, I never understood why a structure so grand wasn’t a sports venue. The ignorant fool I was.

As I stepped out into the parking garage, I was immediately hit by what is known colloquially as the “Sonoma Aroma.” A thick wall of manure embedded itself in my nostrils.

But the real kicker hit me at the entrance. The wretched stench of cigarette-stained carpet joined forces with the back- door breeze to create a truly unholy amalgamation — a nasal uppercut. To me, it smelled like victory.

With my last $200 in my wallet, I walked past the blackjack tables, past the poker rooms, past the sunken eyes of those who still desperately clung onto control. I wasn’t here for cards. Cards require skill.

I was here for the slots. No bluffing, no counting, no reading the room — just blind faith.

Thinking didn’t help me on PrizePicks, so I needed to fall back into Lady Luck’s arms. While at a casino in Reno, my girlfriend once watched a man defecate himself so he didn’t break his winning streak at a slot machine. I needed that mindset — that Dedication.

Like a mosquito drawn to a lamp, I swooped to a slot named Lightning Link, in all of its shining and sparkling splendor. I deposited my cash and got to spinning.

Lightning cracked across the screen. Coins shimmered. I was Thor, god of thunder, commanding the storm with each slam of the button. The machine pulsed like it knew me — worshipped me. And yet, it offered me nothing.

Of course the lightning was a trap. All spectacle, no substance. It lured me in with its bright, flashing colors only to spit me out — famished, $100 poorer and gasping for breath.

I turned away from the storm. That’s when I saw the Whitney Houston Slots, bathed in soft purple light, shimmering like a siren, screaming “I will always love you.” Maybe Ms. Houston was my Lady Luck. Maybe she’d lift me up and carry me into the promised land. But no. She didn’t always love me. She pulled me under, took $50 and left me face-down in the bathtub.

With my hope running on fumes, I wandered through the aisles of machines

one last time. That’s when I saw it: Gold Fish Feeding Time.

Three fishbowls in a row. It looked harmless, almost boring. Except for one thing.

The goldfish. Swollen and wide-eyed, it pressed against the glass like it was seconds from shattering it.

I didn’t know what would happen when that bowl finally burst, but I had to find out. It could only mean one thing: Glory. So I dug into my wallet for my final $50 and spun. And spun, and spun and spun some more.

Every now and then I’d land some goldfish food. The digital fish would swell with each bite, pressing harder against the bowl. It grew and grew — but never enough.

The glass never cracked. It was a sham. Maybe, just maybe, the bowl would shatter after one more spin. Or not, and if I stayed, I’d be broke before I found out.

I had arrived at Graton with $200 in my wallet and nothing but hope in my heart, and as I exited into the parking garage, my hope shattered, the back-door breeze greeted me like an old friend.

That night, when I did laundry, I wasn’t just washing off the cigarette smell. I was scrubbing off the shame. But quite frankly, that was the best thing that could’ve happened.

Failing miserably my first time at a casino was the best-case scenario. If I’d felt the rush of winning, I’d probably be at a much greater risk for addiction. I know myself well enough to recognize that I have a highly addictive personality. Whatever I may have won from that Gold Fish jackpot would’ve hit like crack, and then I would’ve just bet it away. Maybe not at that moment. Maybe I would’ve quit while I was ahead and gone home with my winnings. But it would have stayed on my mind, and eventually I’d be back — shitting my pants trying to keep my winning streak alive.

Read part 2: “OPINION: The truth about gambling addiction.”