"His true love was playing poker at the President Casino,"

Shortly after the Vietnam War, Billy Elrod retired from the U.S. Air Force and bought his own trucking company, driving tractor-trailers for nearly three decades, before setting it all aside to spend more time with his true love: poker.

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"His true love was playing poker at the President Casino," his daughter Tonya said. "He played in a bunch of tournaments, and if he won money he wouldn't tell us about it. But I think, a few times, he won big."

She said it was easy to tell whether her father had won money during his night at the casino by the way he acted the next morning.

"He would come home and give us some money, and say 'why don't you go shopping or get your hair done,'

" she said.

The one time that her father really did "win big," Elrod said he could no longer keep it a secret and his cover was finally blown.

"A few years ago he won $10,000 at Boomtown (Casino) and he didn't tell me," she said. "But a few weeks later, somebody told me that they heard about my dad winning 10 grand. I said, 'What? He won how much?'

Elrod died Friday. He was 74. Funeral services are 7 p.m. today at Bradford-O'Keefe Funeral Home in Ocean Springs.

Source: The Sun Herald

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