Women and Poker – Some Interesting Stats
We have to admit it, poker is generally seen as a man’s game. Yet as other things change in our society, so does this general perception. I came across this really interesting article which talked about a study that was done on the subject. Let me share it with you…
A new study by eCOGRA, an online gaming industry standards authority, finds that more women are playing online poker than ever. Nearly 30% of all participants in this extensive study examining player behavior are female, up from 15% in 2004. An international gaming company states that the trend is also picking up on the corporate side, where more and more women are entering the gaming industry in leading positions.
The global online survey was commissioned by eCOGRA, a self-regulatory body in the gaming industry and undertaken by the Betting and International Gaming Research Units at Nottingham Trent University. It is the largest study so far analysing online poker and casino player’s behaviour and involves nearly 11,000 players from 96 countries. When comparing this data provided to data provided by “Internet Gambling and Wagering Business 2004″, the percentage of women players rose from 15% to nearly 30% in the past 3years.
Yara Wortmann, Ex-Model and founder of poker and sports betting site Winunited.com, comments on the findings of the study: “When it comes to poker, a lot of women prefer the anonymity of the online environment in order to learn the game without risking any derogative remarks from other players. However, if you want to market yourself as a poker site in the midst of the fierce competition, you actually have to break out of that anonymity in order to distinguish yourself from the myriad of gaming pages.”
The gaming industry is growing at a fast pace and a lot of very qualified women are swarming into the industry as it offers a modern, progressive and fun work environment with good career perspectives. At Winunited.com most top positions are held by women. This changed the whole marketing approach of the company.
“We are approaching our customers in a very personal manner”, states 37-year-old Wortmann. “Last year we produced a black and white calendar with pictures of some of our female employees. We sent the calendar to our customers in order to show them who is behind the website and who we are. This created a huge amount of trust and loyalty with our customers and it drives new customers to us. As much as women and people in general might look for anonymity in their private lives, when paying with their credit card over the internet, they prefer to know exactly who they are dealing with. This is what we are offering them and it has been a very successfully concept.”
I suppose that it does make sense – preferring to play online – and I bet that there’s a large number of women out there who are playing at this very minute. In fact, there are many women poker players who are quite well known already. Maybe I’ll take a look at them in a future article.
Andrew Kicak is a poker enthusiast, a writer, researcher, speaker, and consultant. You can visit his blog and sign up free to get 
