Just when you tell your kids to not to gamble or play Internet poker, along comes 2004 McDowell grad Darren Elias.

He won nearly $3 million at the World Poker Tour Jacksonville BestBet Open in May. Read the full story here. His dad is Bill Elias, Gannon’s former athletic director and football coach and current project manager of finance and administration.

My oldest son got pretty good at online games and he and my youngest were really good at Madden NFL tournaments (online and video football games), but they never won millions — that we know of.

Congrats to Darren Elias.

Pam Parker is the editor of Lake Erie LifeStyle, Her Times and House to Home at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Pa.