I Used to Massage Men Who Gambled £100K a Hand: What Poker Taught Me About People, Pressure, and Presence

My Unlikely Career Shift

Most people assume my journey into wellness was linear. It couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, it involved a few TV sets, burnout, high-stakes poker rooms, and some of the strangest conversations I’ve ever had. But here’s what I took from that unexpected detour.

Before starting Seraphim Massage, I spent years in the trenches of production, managing shoots, juggling clients, and delivering everything from commercials and branded content to corporate campaigns and one unexpectedly intense cooking show.

It was relentless, unpredictable, and pretty toxic. I kept pushing… until my body pushed back. After one especially chaotic shoot in Zambia, where all our kit was stolen by armed robbers (a story for another time), something in me cracked. I didn’t know it yet, but I was being rerouted toward rest, healing, and a kind of wellness I’d never made space for before. That moment nudged me onto a new path, into the world of holistic health, where training in massage became a natural gateway. I had no clear plan… until I overheard a conversation that stopped me in my tracks:

"I know this girl who massages in a casino... She’s making serious cash"

My ears pricked up… I was intrigued. Slightly suspicious. But curious enough to look into it.

What I discovered was a surprising subculture. Within the professional poker world, massage is a recognised part of the scene. From high-end card rooms in London to televised tournaments across the Bahamas, Monaco, and opulent corners of Europe, therapists move quietly through the space, bringing calm to a high-pressure environment. Massages are performed over clothing, typically while players remain seated, mid-game.

With Fabiano Kovalski

So, I started out in casinos; strange, liminal spaces where wildly different worlds intersect. Part underworld, part playground. I met everyone from senior political advisers at 10 Downing Street to high-profile pastors, well-known actors, and the occasional wildcard. One of my regulars was an American who lived full-time in a suite at the Corinthia Hotel and chartered private jets for spontaneous “mini-breaks” around the UK. I nicknamed him The White Rabbit, for his tendency to appear out of nowhere and vanish just as fast. He belonged to a kind of Wonderland most of us could never fully comprehend. We also called him Father Christmas, thanks to his snowy shock of hair and famously generous tips. I later heard he ended up in a Caribbean prison; another twist in a life steeped in surrealism.

I once worked in a Park Lane casino where I saw someone lose £45K in under a minute and casually shrug it off with, “Could’ve been a car,” as if it were no more than a mildly inconvenient parking ticket. But what struck me most wasn’t the money, the egos, or the drama (though there was plenty of all three). It was the conversations. Poker rooms felt like a dimension outside of time; no clocks, no windows, just a vacuum where people could finally unwind. In the darkness, stripped of performance, people became strangely real. Human. A little lost, maybe, but honest in a way I rarely saw elsewhere.

Life was seen through a particular lens, the kind shaped by having money to burn, and sometimes, the quiet power of appearing utterly unfazed by burning it. One thing became clear: the tension of the gamble often eclipsed the worries of everyday life. I often found myself wondering which way round it truly was: were they gambling to escape the weight of their lives, or had life grown so dulled by excess that they needed the drama, the risk, just to feel something real?

It wasn’t long before I realised that the natural “promotion” for a massage therapist in this world was to join the European Poker Tour. So I booked my plane ticket and joined the circus. Suddenly I was massaging some of the top-ranked players in the world during €100,000 buy-in games with seven-figure prizes. "Just seen you on TV" was the line I dreaded, usually accompanied by a screenshot from someone watching from afar, as a huge crane panned overhead. It was strange, seeing something that had felt so niche and escapist suddenly playing out on a screen. I lived out of a suitcase, heard the strangest conversations, and learned how to stay grounded in rooms full of tension, adrenaline, and unspoken power dynamics. 

PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA), Bahamas, 2018

I remember one moment in particular. I had accidentally knocked a particular player’s ego (easy to do), and in response, almost as a flex, he booked hours of massage with me. But instead of receiving it, he made his way around the room, dipping in and out of conversations while I barely laid a hand on him. The message was clear: You’ll wait for me… and yes, I can afford it. For most therapists, this was the dream… to sit back, order drinks, and earn hundreds of euros without lifting a finger. But for me, I understood it as a power-play: A subtle assertion of control dressed up as indulgence, and a kind psychological theatre I’d only really encountered in poker.

At the higher levels, poker isn’t about gambling, it’s about strategy, psychology, and pacing. It was fascinating to watch players who were naturally composed get completely thrown off in a moment, "on tilt," as they’d say. That dynamic caught me off guard in the early days. I had to learn how to attune my body to both the dynamics of the present game and the person in front of me. To be more aware that I let on (therapists cannot be seen to look at the cards), to slow down, ease off, or fade into the background entirely during a tense moment. As a therapist paid by the minute, the sweet spot was knowing when to apply presence and pressure… and when to dissolve into the background. For us, the goal was to become a calming presence they almost forgot was there, moving quietly, serenely, letting the minutes (and the money) clock up.

Amongst the velvety clicking of thousands of chips…and there’s nothing quite like that sound, strangely soothing, almost hypnotic… and the low murmur of chatter, there was a calm to it all that I secretly enjoyed. It felt as if I’d stepped out of all of the pressures in my own life, stopping time, gently figuring things out whilst the world spun on. For a girl from rural Kent, raised on good grades, Christian values and a promising career trajectory, this was never part of the plan. But somehow, stepping into this glittering alternate dimension made sense. I was still learning, just through a different lens.

Casino de Monte-Carlo, 2018

Eventually, something in me began to shift. Maybe it was the accumulation of surreal hours, quietly awakening me to the passing of time. Or maybe it was a deeper conviction starting to take root.

I’d had my time in that underground playground, and whatever needed to be explored or worked through in me, had been. Over time, I felt a gentle pull toward something different. The industry had its perks, and I’d carved out a place in a tier that brimmed with credibility. But it no longer sat quite right with me. After stepping away for a few years, I returned with clarity, and a desire to build something more aligned. Aligned with my values. Aligned with where I was now. I learnt a lot in the world of poker, but I wanted to create something different, something steadier, and more life-giving. Not just for me, but for where others could thrive too, offering care in a space that felt brighter (and saying that…significantly better lit).

What massaging the 1% taught me about the rest of us at work.

Over time, I began to realise what this world was really teaching me. Not just about work, but about people. About presence. About pressure.
And that’s really what poker taught me: 

How to read people.

~ How stress shows up differently on every face and body. 

~ How to meet unpredictable environments with calm 

~ How to offer care in a way that doesn’t interrupt, but supports.

I learned how to give a really good massage in the most unconventional settings, where trust and awareness mattered just as much as technique. And perhaps most importantly, I learned that people, regardless of how much is at stake, just want a moment to exhale. To be seen without needing to perform.

That’s what presence is: being able to read what isn’t said.

A flicker of tension in the shoulder. A breath held too long. A jaw that won’t quite let go.

It’s a kind of attentiveness I’ve carried with me ever since. One that now shapes how I work in corporate spaces, though it was born in the strangest rooms imaginable.