If you’ve been watching Celebrity Traitors 2025 and see yourself as a cool, calm Cat or giggling Alan (who seems to be absolutely drunk on Traitor power), this one’s for you.
- Master the Traitor Mindset
- Popular Online Poker Games
- How to Spot a Bluff
- Control the Pot Control the Power
- Know Your Position (and Use it Like a Cloak)
- Adapt or Be Banished
- Play Poker Like a Modern-Day Traitor
Underneath the cloaks and cackling (Alan, again), The Traitors is actually a masterclass in human behaviour which shares its playbook with another mind game: online poker. Reading people, expression control, and bluffing with conviction, whether you’re sitting around the round table or the poker table.
Former Traitor Paul Gorton breaks down the psychology behind the show and talks strategy, mental warfare, and how you can apply Traitor tactics at the online poker table.
Master the Traitor Mindset
“I love the psychology that sits behind the show, the human behavioural things – I’ve got so many little theories cooking away about how people react under pressure,” Paul says.
That pressure is what poker players live for. Every hand changes the odds. A great player, like a great Traitor, adapts fast.
When you sit down to play poker, keep the same flexible mindset. Watch the numbers, but read the room. Odds might give you logic but behaviour gives you more.
Popular Online Poker Games
Texas Hold’em: So classic even Beyonce knows it. The crowd favourite. Two hole cards (the two private cards you’re dealt at the start), and five community cards (the cards dealt face-up in the middle that everyone can use). Simple to learn, making it perfect for new players testing their poker face.
Omaha Hi-Lo: You can win with the best high hand and the best low hand. Good for experienced players.
Five Card Draw: The OG of poker. Considered the simplest and easiest game, perfect for newbies wanting a quick online session. Everyone gets five cards, then trades to chase the dream hand.
Snap Poker: Same rules as Texas Hold’Em but you move to a new table if you fold. Perfect for players who like to make quick decisions.
Poker Tournaments: From sit-and-gos to multi-table events with big prize pools, online tournaments are popular.
How to Spot a Bluff
“Sitting face-to-face with the person you’re accusing is brutal,” Paul says. “It’s like a police line-up reversed — you see your ‘attacker’ right there, and it changes everything”.
In The Traitors, that moment decides who survives. In poker, it decides who cashes out.
Online, watch for betting rhythms and timing shifts. A lightning-fast call can be the mark of a weak hand trying to appear strong. A sudden pause after a streak of aggression might mean they’re second-guessing.
In other words: you don’t need to see a Traitor to spot one. You just need to study their habits.
Online pros do this constantly. They notice how long opponents take to act, how often they raise before the flop (flop being the first three cards everyone at the table can see), and whether those bets make sense.
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Control the Pot Control the Power
“The Faithful are always victims; the Traitors are always villains,” Paul laughs. “But both are fighting for survival“.
In poker, survival means stack management. Your chips are your armour and your weapon. Big stacks can push people around; short stacks have to calculate every move.
A true Traitor knows when to look weak to strike strong. Sometimes that means folding early especially when the odds (or the table) turn against you. Other times, it means making a bold move at exactly the right moment.
The trick is that every action must make sense in the story. A random all-in looks like panic but a calculated raise after steady control looks like power. As the WhichBingo poker guide says, believable betting tells a consistent tale.
And that’s the magic crossover: both Traitors and poker reward players who can bluff just enough to stay one step ahead, without revealing the act.
Know Your Position (and Use it Like a Cloak)
Every Traitor knows information is power and position gives you that edge.
If you act last, you’ve seen everyone else’s moves. If you act first, you control the story. Late position online is the closest thing to being the final vote at the round table: you can watch alliances form, read reactions, then swoop in with confidence.
As WhichBingo’s poker guide explains, your position in relation to the dealer button can change everything. Great Traitors and great poker players know how to use timing to their advantage.
Adapt or Be Banished
In The Traitors, one wrong read can end your game, and poker’s the same.
Post-flop, everything changes: your odds, your story, your plan. The flop can turn a powerhouse hand into a liability, or a weak pair into gold. Good players reassess constantly. They slow down when they need information, accelerate when they smell fear.
Paul knows that tension well: “You start to see people stripped back to their raw, classic human behaviours – herd mentality, survival instinct, guilt – all of it comes out“.
That’s exactly what happens online. Watch long enough and you’ll spot the equivalents of guilt and panic: erratic betting, inconsistent folds, rushed calls.
Those are your clues. Follow them.
Play Poker Like a Modern-Day Traitor
Online poker is the purest test of Traitor skills.
Online poker means you can’t rely on eye contact, so you learn to spot patterns – betting rhythms, reaction times, and changes in other players’ play. Some players use heads-up displays (HUDs) to analyse habits, but you can pick up plenty just by observing.
The WhichBingo Poker Strategy Guide covers everything you’ll need to get started, including how to read timing, manage your betting, and avoid common mistakes. Combine that knowledge with the Traitor mindset (calm, calculated, adaptable) and you’ll be in good stead to play like a pro Traitor.
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