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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Joe Cada bet on gambling instead of college and started playing poker full-time after winning enough to buy a house and justify playing tournaments in far-off places.

The 21-year-old's wager paid off Tuesday in a way many players only dream when he became the youngest champion ever at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

Cada, from Shelby Township, Mich., says the win and $8.55 million top prize gives him a lot of freedom.

Cada posed for pictures at the table where he matched wits against eight others during the weekend culmination of a no-limit Texas Hold 'em tournament that began in July with 6,494 players. Then he partied with friends and family in a suite usually reserved for free-spending gamblers and celebrity guests.