From Ante to All-in in 4 months

History of woodworking, desire to play on a real table...
 

It was 2005, and I’d become dissatisfied with hosting my poker buddies at our family’s dinner table.  I "anted" up $7 for a design plan from eBay and put the skills my father taught me growing up in furniture craftsmanship into my first custom-built poker table.
 

Functional, sure. But from an engineering standpoint there was work to do. I put it on eBay and sold it in 2 days with a small profit to invest in the next table. Back to Home Depot for more supplies. 

Time to fire up AutoCAD® and a mode modular design was born that focused on the finish. Table 2 came to life.

Definitely nicer, but still room to improve. I list it on eBay and off it goes in under a week, again with cash to spare for improvement.

Table 3 was all-in - the design included hammered copper laminate inlay for the "racetrack", locking chip tray, and a custom dyed felt. At least that was the plan. I never got to play on it because of eBay. Someone that lost on the bidding of the first two messaged asking if I would build his perfect table. "What would you build for yourself was his exact question." I shared the current build and he said name your price...we changed the felt design - reflecting a custom piece of his art collection and one of the felts I still love to this day!

As my eBay message box started filling up with requests, out of the blue I received a call from  The Desert Diamond Casinos of Arizona who became the first of many professional gaming partners I’d have worldwide when they accepted my bid on 25 tables.
 

If there’d been any doubt before, I was now “pot committed.” From a jigsaw and an idea, Tilt Brothers incorporated with a neighbor born and a hobby business was born. 

A few years later I bought out my neighbor, changed the name to Off Tilt to reflect my methodical and more measured style of business and 19 years later I am grateful for the people, life experiences and story that has become a part of who I am.

Oh, and while i have played on my tables around the world including Australia, Panama, Malta, Costa Rica, and 20 different states across the US...

I still don't have my own table!