Kevin Thomas

1. 1. was born and raised in Douglassville, PA, where I went to a small school that graduated 114 kids. I played four sports in high school: baseball, Football, Wrestling, and track and field. There was an ESPN article about our football team, as we had exactly enough players to play, so yes, I played offense-guard, defense-end, and special teams as a gunner. The article was about how we managed to play with just enough.
2. 2. The next chapter of my life took me into the Navy, and I decided to join the SEALs program. I ran my butt off for months prior, held my breath underwater for close to 3 minutes, and I qualified, while stationed in Great Lakes for boot camp. Only 14 or so were even qualified to try out, and that was out of a lot of recruits. The physical stuff was always easy for me; it was my family that ultimately had me decline. It was 1992, and my mom found out she had leukemia, and we had no idea what that meant, so I took an accounting field as an AK and was sent to Mississippi for school. I served my four years stationed in VA, six hours from home. I have made two deployments and have been to many countries. I don't regret my choice, as most guys don't make it past the SEALs bootcamp. So I'll never know if I could have made it.
3. 3. I got out of the Military as an E4 and was offered E5 to stay. I declined and used my G.I. Bill to attend college, where I took math and health classes as I considered becoming a math or health teacher, minoring in analytics (which wasn't that big). During school, I decided to do a two-year muscle therapy course. I ended up getting licensed in Massage Therapy and certified in the Pfrimmer technique. I worked with a lot of athletes.
4. 4. started gambling with these white pick'em tickets my dad got from work when I was 13. My dad had no idea about sports; he was a car guy, and he spent most of his time in a garage. So he'd say fill 'em out. I was hooked. As I got older, I had an inside track to a bookie; we didn't have internet gambling, and sports gambling was illegal where I lived. This is when I started following trends and learning lines. Eventually, I saw a contest for a foreign book with a nice payout, so I entered and finished 2nd out of 1700 people. I finished 65% in College Football, and I knew I could make this a career. Bought a site in 2004 called LionofVegas, a small, single-capper email site, but I had help. A few years later, everyone was going syndicated (multi-handicapper sites), and instead of dropping 30k into my site, I decided to send resumes and join established sites. I have done very well over the past 18 years, capping .
5. 5. I now have three daughters, all in medical school. I'm super proud, but would prefer at least one to be an electrician or mechanic. I coached girls' softball for 12 years, did pitching and hitting lessons on the side. Now that the kids' sports are done, I'm usually at the gym or walking the dogs in my downtime. The good thing about my location is that I could bike to the Reading Phillies stadium, close to the Iron Pigs, and an hour away from Philadelphia sports.