Professional poker player and beauty pageant winner Cyclona “Clonie” Gowen has filed a $40 million lawsuit against online poker room Full Tilt Poker (www.fulltiltpoker.com), whom she flacked for until being fired earlier this month.

The twice-divorced Gowen, of Dallas, Texas, USA, given her first name because she was born during a cyclone, has won nearly a million dollars in her career playing tournament poker. At age 15, she won the Miss Teen Oklahoma beauty pageant. Still photogenic at age 37, she is a staple of televised poker matches.

According to media reports, the lawsuit was filed in Nevada District Court on November 14, 2008, and names Full Tilt Poker and several related companies and individuals as defendants. The suit seeks $40 million in damages for fraud, breach of contract and other actions.

Gowen was fired as a shill for Full Tilt Poker on November, 11, 2008, media reports said. She had worked for the online poker room since 2004.

According to media reports, Gowen alleges in the lawsuit that in 2004 she was offered, and accepted, a 1% stake in Full Tilt Poker in exchange for her services as a celebrity endorser, but that she received no pay other than that ownership stake for wearing Full Tilt Poker merchandise and promoting the online poker room. She further alleges that other Full Tilt Poker celebrity endorsersmembers were given checks for their ownership interests in May of 2007, but that she did not receive one, and that six months later she declined a $250,000 payment because it was only a fraction of what 1% of the company was worth. =A0=A0 Among those included in the lawsuit as defendants are fellow poker pros and Full Tilt Poker celebrity endorsers Howard “The Professor” Lederer, Andy Bloch, Phil “Poison” Ivey, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, John Juanda, Phil Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Jen Harman, Erik Seidel, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, Allen Cunningham, Gus “The Great Dane” Hansen and Patrik Antonius.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)