Three years ago Natasha Ellis made the life-changing decision to ditch her job as a travel writer and embark on a far more high-risk career. It was a big gamble but it paid off. Today she is one of Britain’s leading professional poker players, competing in tournaments around the world and taking home more than £45,000 a year.

Ellis, who was taught to play by her father at the age of five, has joined a growing number of young Scots who have forsaken the security of a monthly wage to move into the glamorous, addictive world of international poker.

“I only ever used to play for fun with friends,” says Ellis, 34, whose blonde bob and glossy lipstick set her apart from the stereotypical chain-smoking gambler. “But I just kept on winning.”

Ellis, who lives in Merchiston, Edinburgh, is sponsored by a poker website that pays for her to compete in tournaments from Dublin to Las Vegas. This week she returns to Nevada’s gambling paradise, where she and her boyfriend, Mark, will sightsee by day and play the tables by night.

“I love my job,” she says. “The hours are flexible, I have no set routine, I don’t need to commute and I can lie in as late as I want.”

Ellis’s first brush with professional poker was gambling online. She started playing in her spare time, but when the money started rolling in three years ago, she decided to give up work to concentrate on poker full-time.

Although Ellis is very much in the minority among professional poker players, who are overwhelmingly male, she is part of a popular trend.

Last month the lads’ mag Nuts conducted a survey of men’s gambling habits that showed that while men in the rest of the UK spent an average of £25 a month on gambling, that figure rose to £40 in Scotland, and almost half the Scots questioned said they gambled once a week, compared with 30% in the rest of the country.

“Scots have always had a strong gambling culture and our study reflected that,” says Phil Hilton, the magazine’s editor. “Gambling has recently been accepted as a sport or hobby, and the fact that people are winning money only serves to make it more appealing.

“Gone are the days when gambling was for mugs. In today’s world it’s trendy.”

Films such as Ocean’s Eleven and Rounders have given poker a younger, funkier image along with celebrity poker showdowns starring actors such as Ben Affleck and the casts of popular television shows including ER and The West Wing.

“Poker offers people a lot of freedom. Students have the option of taking out an expensive bank loan or starting a rubbish job to make ends meet. Or they could go online and make a living through poker,” says Nic Szeremeta, who launched Channel 4’s Late Night Poker show in 1999.

“If you’re a quick learner and bright, it can offer the perfect escape route from the conventional nine-to-five desk job.”

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