In the poker game of life, women are the rake.’ This pearl of wisdom is courtesy of Ed Norton’s character Worm in the cult poker movie Rounders. The fact that Matt Damon’s Mike McDermott answers with a ‘What the f♣♥♠ are you talkin’ about’ is neither here nor there – it remains a smashing quote, and one that makes far more sense once you understand how rake works.

Put simply, the rake is a ‘service fee’ imposed by a poker site or casino if you want to play the glorious game in their ‘house’. Every pot has a specific percentage surreptitiously removed before the bulk of the chips are pushed back across the baize to the winning player.