Nice story, and great bit of early success! Kind of similar to what happened to me after I bought Ether early on. I have the feeling there's a big "but" coming though.
By the way, anyone who loves Blackjack can now feed their addiction on the blockchain with this fascinating new Ethereum app that just launched: http://blockjack.io
You need to be using MetaMask in Chrome or the Mist browser to play.
Haha yes there is a very large "but" coming...