Online poker boom nets 888 winning hand of £152m

Its big earner remained casino games - such as roulette and blackjack - which netted around 90.6m, up 16 per cent on 2004.

However, it was poker which saw a real surge in interest over the last year, with revenues up 179 per cent to 61.9m.

Although it operates out of Gibraltar, 888's 23.2 million registered players are based across 150 different countries.

The number of "real money" members - those who have registered and also take part in games - hit 5.5 million by the end of 2005, up 49 per cent since December 2004.

The poker popularity trend has been seen in other online gambling firms - with 32Red last month reporting a 339 per cent increase in revenues from the game.