A big deal: Poker is getting younger, cleverer, duller and much, much richer

At the highest level, decisions about betting, bluffing and folding are based on the complex juggling of probabilities. “What drew me to poker is that it is essentially an academic endeavour,” says Ms Duke. She is one of a growing group of full-time players who came to poker through game theory and mathematics, not through any love of a flutter. (Indeed, she never plays craps or roulette.) Others include Mr Lederer (her brother) and Mr Ferguson, who has a doctorate in computer science and writes academic papers on probability theory with his father, a statistician at UCLA.

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Thomas Bihl, winner of a recent HORSE tournament, in which players have to show mastery of five different styles of poker, thinks the game has more in common with finance than it does with basic forms of gambling, because it requires the constant pricing and repricing of risk. Mr Bihl, a former stock trader, says the move from his old job into poker was a natural progression. Though his £71,000 win was “a huge lift”, he says that he is motivated not by money but by the chance to use his brain to outfox opponents. This is a common refrain among regular players. As Ms Coren put it in a recent article: “Cash is nothing more than chips, just the tools of the trade, like fishing rods to an angler. The game is all about money, and nothing to do with money.”

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Books:

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Doyle Brunson's Super System: A Course in Power Poker

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No Limit Hold 'em: Theory and Practice

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The Theory of Poker