When she’s not raising her young son and trying to make ends meet, Diana Armstrong (Lisa Raye) dreams of becoming a broadcast journalist. Determined to survive and get a college degree, Diana takes a job as a stripper at The Players Club, a notorious strip joint run by a two-bit hustler named Dollar Bill (Bernie Mac). Under the stage name Diamond, Diana becomes a playful seductress, teasing and tempting the denizens of the dark for the crumpled dollar bills they toss on-stage. Unlike the other dancers — Ronnie (Chrystale Wilson) and Tricks (Adele Givens), whose ambitions have slowly withered beneath the harsh strip club lights — Diamond is determined to get in, get the money and get out.

Working at the club at night and studying by day, Diamond quickly becomes wise to the ways of the club’s underworld. She learns to keep her distance, particularly from Dollar Bill and his loyal doorman, Li’l Man (A. J. Johnson), who are both living on borrowed time with a loan shark named St. Louis (Larry McCoy). The only person that Diamond trusts at the club is Blue (Jamie Foxx), a young deejay who wants out as badly as she does. When Diamond’s young and naive cousin Ebony (Monica Calhoun) moves in, she is easy prey for Ronnie and Tricks, who are always looking for new dancers to do their dirty work. The cousins clash when Diamond tries to protect Ebony from the lure of this daunting and dangerous world. But ultimately, no one is safe from this oasis of perversion where flesh is sold, crimes are planned and lives are changed forever.