Who Is Nikita Luther, India's First Female Poker Star And The Traitors Winner
Nikita Luther was sent home in the first episode by another contestant, Elnaaz Norouzi, but with her mindful playing, the wildcard entrant emerged as the winner with Uorfi Javed.
Karan Johar's reality show The Traitors crowned its first-season winners—Uorfi Javed and Nikita Luther. While Uorfi is a well-known social media personality and fashion influencer, many viewers are curious about the show's other champion. Unlike her co-winner, Nikita Luther isn't from the entertainment world. She is, in fact, India's top female poker player.
A Delhi native, Nikita studied finance and marketing at the University of Delhi. Her foray into poker began casually on Zynga, a popular online poker app. What started as a fun pastime soon became a serious pursuit. In 2015, during a friend's birthday party, she played poker for real money for the first time—a moment that marked a turning point in her journey into professional poker.
Nikita appeared on the first season of Game of Gold, a poker reality show. In February 2017, she won the Macau Poker Cup team event with Raghav Bansal. Her victory made her India's first woman to win a global poker tournament. But the biggest moment of her career came in June 2018. She, along with her teammate Giuseppe Pantaleo, won a gold bracelet at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
She is currently mentoring at the 'Super Bowl' of poker championships in India and is the COO of the Poker Sports League. By taking part in many national and international events over the years, she has built an impressive record. Till now, she has won over $440,000 (over Rs 3 crore) in live tournament earnings.
Coming to The Traitors, professional poker player Nikita Luther was sent home in the first episode by another contestant, Elnaaz Norouzi, before the game officially began. But she made a surprising entry in the game in the third episode as a wildcard. With her mindful playing, she emerged as the winner of the show with Uorfi Javed. The two walked away with a whopping prize money of Rs 70.05 lakh. The Prime Video show ended with an intense finale where the duo eliminated Harsh Gujral to clinch the title. The comedian came third, while Sudhanshu Pandey and Purav Jha were out of the game, bagging fourth and fifth positions, respectively.
The Traitors started with an impressive ensemble cast of 20 celebrity contestants and influencers. Besides the above-mentioned contestants, the show also featured Karan Kundrra, Raj Kundra, Raftaar, Anshula Kapoor, Maheep Kapoor, Jasmin Bhasin, Ashish Vidyarthi, Elnaaz Norouzi, Janvee Gaurr, Lakshmi Manchu, Mukesh Chhabra, Sahil Salathia, Sufi Motiwala, Jannat Zubair and Apoorva Mukhija.
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