I started because my brother used to play texas hold'em. As a younger one I would watch him play and really liked it, he always did good, it was strange. Or maybe he wouldn't tell me when he lost, but I will never know now, anyway. That got me started into poker and then blackjack and video poker. Poker and blackjack were hard for me to understand, I read a lot of articles and books. Mostly internet ones, because it was free, but later tried to invest in books. Articles were always about poker and I would try Wikipedia and other casino sites with articles + youtube videos. I remember how the combinations took me a long time to understand. Then I played with my brother and would always lose, tried the internet poker and poker with friends. After some time when I won against my brother, which was a big thing to me, I realized I could play in Casino. So I went for the first time and lost a sh.t ton of money. Couldn't stop playing even tho I was horrible. So players took advantage of that and stripped me out of my money. Went home and cried, told my brother. He was mad, but I described everything I did and what they did, he then explained to me the vocabulary in poker, which I have never used before, told me what I did wrong and what could have been better. After some time I finally went back to the casino. guess what? Lost again and never went back. I had to stop going to the casinos because the atmosphere made me anxious and I couldn't focus on playing, made huge mistakes which I had regretted later. Since then I only played poker with my brother and friends for fake money. Now all I play is blackjack through online casinos and video poker, which is great - my opinion. I have read articles about that and books also, it's not that easy, but not that hard. All I have to do is know when to stop, which is hard of course, but its the key to success.
I will insert some links if you want to check out the articles, If I still had the books, I would write them down, but I feel like I only own one because I had sold them all.
book - David Sklansky - The theory of poker - classics, but very good. You can find it probably in every library, so NO link here
Poker basic poker strategy
Black jack very good one
Texas Hold'em here's wiki site, because I can't find the game my brother used to play, sorry.
Videopoker strategies, because they are important
Moral of the story - the biggest success is to know when to stop playing. I learned the hard way, please learn from my mistakes, not yours.