January 4, 2006 By day JoJo Hastie organises charity events and private functions. At night she is one of a growing band of women who are taking over the male dominated game of poker.

Three years ago the image of poker was of large men chomping on equally large cigars in dark, smoky rooms with bottles of beer and tumblers spread around. But in the past year the number of female players has risen dramatically. More than a third of the tens of millions of players are now women.


The women are also heading out and playing face to face. At a recent ladies-only tournament in Chelsea, 30 young professional women turned up to play Texas No Limit Hold ‘Em, the most popular poker game.

Ms Hastie, 26, started playing cards a few months ago, taught by her boyfriend, and entered her first mixed-sex tournament a few weeks ago. “It was really good fun. I came third out of 20 people and won £250,� she said. Another player at the Chelsea tournament was Mary Caldecott-Smith, 34, who runs a gardening club. She said: “There are no men here and it is so relaxing.�

Relaxing it may be but that does not stop the bluffs and double bluffs being used by the increasingly competitive women. Shiobhain Brennan, 35, a property developer, said that playing a women-only game was much more fun.

The women-only games are devised by Julian Morel, 36. The majority of his clients are in property, PR or fashion, and the prizes of manicures and facials are not why they turn up.

Mr. Morel, who also organises corporate poker events, said: “It is the new social thing for women to do and gives them a chance to surprise their partners when they say they are going out for the night.�

Three years ago, when online poker started to become popular, Natasha Ellis was earning £14,000 a year as a travel writer. Now she has more than tripled that salary working just four or five hours a day, four days a week.

Ms Ellis, 34, recently came 15th out of 600 people in the online world championships and, despite being the only woman in the Scottish Championship, reached the final table. Conrad Brunner, European marketing manager, one of the biggest sites, estimates that out of 3.5 million players on his site 900,000 were women.