'The standard is very high nowadays,' says Jack Taylor of Profit Accumulator. The general level of online play has also risen, as fewer new players enter the scene and technology has made cheating easier than ever. But interest in poker has dwindled, and gambling laws in the US are now much stricter. On top of that, all the new players throwing money around were easy targets that even moderately skilful players could take advantage of. Its sudden jump in popularity meant poker companies had to fight for customers with lucrative sign-up offers.

The game experienced a huge boom in the early-to-mid 2000s as amateur player Chris Moneymaker's $2.5 million (£1.9 million) 2003 World Series of Poker win catapulted Texas Hold'em into the mainstream. Online poker is not the free-for-all that it used to be. I manage to win some other small prizes on twister games and last an hour or so in a couple of longer tournaments, but the measly amount I make isn't worth the hours I'm sinking into it – and that’s not just because of my terrible luck and lack of talent.

For a few smug, glorious seconds I feel like a proper card shark, but it's short-lived. I go 'all-in' on my first hand in one game and sweep up an easy £10. Twister is a turbo-charged version of Texas Hold'em, where three players face off with a small number of chips, and whoever ends up with them all bags a randomly generated prize between £2 and £2,000. I get lucky in a free game of 'twister' poker early on. Like matched betting with sports bookies, most poker rooms offer a cash bonus or free tournament tickets when you make your first deposit, and I aim to use these to kickstart my bankroll. To give myself a better chance of finishing the month in profit, despite being absolutely shit at poker, I try to take advantage of sign-up offers. It’s not like someone’s out to get you – and if they are, use it.'Īlthough I lack Maria's self-control, solid temperament, attention to detail and PhD-level understanding of psychology, I do have something going for me: an insatiable appetite for grifting.

'Remind yourself over and over that none of this is personal,' Maria says.

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