A Belfast maths graduate who rejected the offer of a £40,000-a-year banking job in favour of professional online gambling is on course to hit a £234,000 jackpot by December, the Sun reports (http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004430460,00.html).

Lee-Anne Smyth, 25, currently walks away with a cool £4,500 a week from Ladbrokespoker.com (http://www.ladbrokespoker.com/), and told the UK tabloid: "Who needs a proper job when I can make what most people earn in a month in a couple of hours?" Smyth - who graduated from Queen’s University, Belfast with a 2.2 honours degree in pure and applied mathematics - claims that "hours spent solving algebraic equations sharpened my poker brain."

They clearly did, since the young card sharp has already paid for her £150,000 house outright and owns a new £15,000 motor - bought for cash, naturally.

Smyth is expecting her first child and will shortly wed 26-year-old squeeze Paul Cranstom in, you guessed it, Las Vegas. ®

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