Bonuses

While the practice of comping players with free meals, hotel rooms, and merchandise is quite common in B&M casinos, online poker rooms have needed to develop new ways to reward faithful customers. The most common way of doing this is through deposit bonuses, where the player is given a bonus code to enter when placing money into an account. The bonus code adds either a percentage, or a set amount of chips to the value of the deposit. Besides this, several online cardrooms employ VIP Managers to develop VIP programs to reward regular players.

"In January 2003, the total global daily cash game turnover for online poker was just $10 million (£5.3m) and by 2004 it had risen to $60m (£32m). Now, $180m (£95m) is wagered in cash game pots in online poker every day."

But the craze is not just for online games. Fuelled by reports of glamorous names such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Nigella Lawson and husband Charles Saatchi, and Ben Affleck - who won the Californian State Poker Championship last June - spending their evenings bluffing and betting, groups of friends are setting up their own poker circles.

Even Coronation Street has got in to the act when at the end of last year viewers saw butcher Fred Elliott lose his shop to Mike Baldwin in a high-stakes game of poker, just weeks after they had started playing in the OAPs’ club for mere pennies. But for many the appeal is a sociable and intimate night’s entertainment - with no more cost than that of an average night out in town.

As Joe Tree, of Leith, who plays with around six friends on a monthly basis, says: "We play a tournament style game where everyone buys into the game with an equal amount, which is usually around £20 or £30. Then we play to the death and the last one standing takes home whatever cash is left. We usually buy some beers and pizza with the pot, but there’s still quite a bit left over. And no one ever loses out too much because £30 is less than you would spend on a good night out."