TAKING A GAMBLE: Celebrity poker players

Ross Boatman, who plays Cathy’s brother, Derek, in Mum (10pm, BBC2), is also a professional poker player. Here, we take a look at some famous faces who like to gamble…

Ross Boatman The Mum star, whose most famous role was as fireman Kevin Medhurst in the long-running television series London’s Burning, is also a professional poker player, whose earnings on the live circuit total around £1.5 million. Together with his brother and two friends, he belongs to a pokerplaying group known as the Hendon Mob.

Victoria Coren Mitchell The Only Connect host is a two-times winner on the European Poker Tour, and has clocked up winnings in excess of £1.5 million. She learned to play in her teens, and her rise to the top of her game is chronicled in her

2009 poker memoir, For Richer, For Poorer.

Ben Affleck The Gone Girl star was a regular at Las Vegas’s gaming tables, but was banned for life from playing blackjack at the Hard Rock casino in 2014 after security allegedly caught him counting cards. In her memoir, Molly Bloom, who ran the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game, confirmed Affleck as one of her famous regulars.

Tobey Maguire Another regular at Molly’s table was the Spider-Man star, who took up tournament poker in 2004. Bloom nicknamed him ‘Hannibal Lecter’ because of his ruthless attitude at the table.

The 2017 Aaron Sorkin film Molly’s Game told the story of Bloom’s high-stakes enterprise.