How about Soap Operas and the Bachelor on the TV's instead of sports all the time. This could help.

Nail salon at the poker room.

I give you credit for acknowledging the possibility. I consider my job in this thread done and damn it wasn't easy

I mentioned this idea in the PAD thread, but I think that show should do a ladies' night cash game.

I thought the new PAD was only going to air on PokerGO...and that is going to reach basically ZERO people who were not already into poker and willing to dump ten bucks a month for their content.

PNIA, on the other hand, at least airs on a channel a half-dozen or so people get on satellite...

Creating women who are well-known among poker players leads to having more female faces to choose from in attempts to market the game towards non-hardcore fans.

I didn't watch WSOP coverage much. What I did watch was mostly in the poker room with the sound off. Did they use any female poker players as analysts (not as mic stands for interviews) during coverage?

Yes, Maria Ho.

I don't want to chime in with anything already mentioned ad nauseam in this thread (or other similar threads), so I'll just throw in some loose thoughts:

First of all, this is a tough issue to really dissect at a site like this. Asking 2+2 members for the reasons why women (or any other group) don't play poker is akin to asking the members of a Bible study group why someone doesn't believe in God. You'll get a variety of guesses, anecdotes, hypotheses and conjecture, but ultimately, you won't ever hear from an atheist. So it would be difficult to truly know what they think.

Same thing applies here: of all the different and disparate opinions participating in these threads, there is one group we won't hear from: women who have chosen not to play poker. Sure, we hear from women who DO play the game (btw michelle227, your contributions to this thread have been great to read). But unless someone can poll a bunch of non-poker players, then report here what they had to say, we're all just guessing what the motivations are.

* * * * *

For what it's worth, PNIA already did a "ladies' night" cash game. Several of them, as I recall. Even then, the rest of your point is spot-on: anyone watching it was already interested in poker.

* * * * *

Finally, I'll leave with this...

Bunco went from being a con game in the 19th century to a gambling game in the 1920s to a pastime with a predominantly female player base in the last 20 years. There was even a Bunco World Championship a few years ago. It was televised... on Oxygen (the network for women). My high school class hosted a charity bunco tournament to raise some money for one of our old classmates a few years back.

Somewhere on my street, there is a regular weekly bunco game. My neighbor once invited me to it when she found out I played poker. She figured I might enjoy it, since our local bunco night apparently resembles the stereotypical poker night – at least, in terms of it being a social event. A bunch of friends, copious amounts of alcohol, lively conversation, plus a game.

Due to my schedule, I could not play in the charity tourney nor my neighbor's home game. However, I will admit that my inner monologue went "I don't want to play that...that's a women's game." (Note: that I would impose gender roles on a game is unusual, given that I've spent my entire professional life working primarily with women's sports.) I later asked my neighbor's husband if he ever played in the game. His answer was more or less "Bunco? Nah, that's a woman's game."

That's a long way of saying that men sometimes do the same thing when it comes to activities generally associated with women.

However, it also gives me hope when it comes to women embracing poker. If bunco can make such a turn that the pendulum has swung completely in the opposite direction, who knows what could happen with poker. And it just might take a few generations to make such a pivot. So whatever the reasons are that women don't flock to poker, those reasons might be completely different years from now.

I kinda want to play bunco. I gave bingo a try even though I'm not old and I thought it was mildly entertaining. I bet bunco would be a lot of fun, actually. Especially if you're a single guy.

Does anybody know why they don't play poker in Africa?

I'm told it's because they have too many cheetahs....I'll see myself out.

Where were many men introduced to poker? Television.

What channel was it on? ESPN

Bravo needs to bring back celebrity poker showdown, with some of the real housewives and women who women look up to.

i lol'd but not sure I get it.


as long as a female is required to sit in close quarters at a table of 8-9 males...

2-3 of which are in need of a shower

2-3 more of which treat her presence like it is a night club and flirtatious convo is expected / required.

then they just arent gonna play.

would you?

even with that the "1 female under 25 at WSOP Main 2017 with 7200 runners" did sort of freak me out though. thats messed up. I blame Ty Stewart . He must be a marketing to females bad reg

just treat to women like to you treat to a human being...what are we?monkeys?we need to tell to everyone that we have to shower every day,brush our teeth every day,wear clean clothes and have clean hands every day?what are you homeless and you dont do that stuff?if you are not doing those and still you go and play live poker then you are pityfull!!!

Have poker games where mahjong is played.

This is another good example refuting that idea that poker is an inherently male pursuit. If women just don't like strategy games, why is mahjong so overwhelmingly female?

whats the strategy in mahjong? you're matching tiles.

I legit loled

What's the skill in gin?

You address it but you immediately refute it yourself by claiming that to attract women the rules of poker have to change from something you say they inherently don't like (NLHE) to something they inherently like (LHE). Well we could also just change the rules even more and spread Bridge then, or Bunco.

Btw I like limit poker - I enjoy all kinds of card games. NLHE is the card game that most resembles how Hollywood taught me to expect poker to be though and it's the one I enjoy the most.

Every time the cards are in the air you are risking the stack that is in front of you - it can go KK<AA (or worse, AA<KK). Yes there are smaller pots but you can't sit at the table if you aren't willing to risk $200 on a hand. It's quite a different sell to the dollar slots.

I don't know if women inherently like limit poker more than NL poker. However, I think limit poker is for a variety of reasons more appealing to inexperienced and recreational players, both men and women, and thus it may attract more new players. It is more social, less intimidating, more forgiving, and more similar to other games played in the casino.

The reason NLHE became so dominant is not that it is more fun to play, but it does make a much better TV watching experience, especially when it comes to tournaments. As more and more people in the early 2000s were exposed to poker by watching it on TV, most people learned that poker=NLHE.

But TV isn't the avenue that people are going to be first exposed to poker anymore. They will learn the way they did pre-2003, through low stakes social home games with friends and family. In this environment, the poker=NLHE attitude will scare off more people than it attracts (and FWIW, I think PLO is even worse). This is true for both men and women, but I think women are less likely to be accultured into this mindset already.

Is there anyone who thinks that increasing the participation of women in poker will make poker worse?

women are generally too smart to waste their time and money.

a poker ecosystem is a poker ecosystem,you need to be slightly damaged to be a poker player look at my stories they show the struggle of non comformist its a square peg in a round hole .........ladies dont want that volatile life .

At first glance I thought he was going to make a controversial IQ argument lol

THIS ^^^

In the United states women are conditioned to not think. Girls have dolls that say " I hate math" " I love shopping"

If anyone has ever taken math classes at the University level, the classes are 95% males.

If anyone has ever walked through the grocery store, the music being played target females to not think and buy.

Females have been trained to believe that the superficial things are the most important, because all they have to do is look good and some guy will sell out his soul to make sure to get her. Its in the music, TV etc etc ---->https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBHQbu5rbdQ

I love seeing a girl that can bounce her ass just as much as anyone else, but I also feel bad for them. The music denigrates women, and in turn they denigrate themselves.

Hence why most females that play poker are more butch and less good looking (there are exceptions). Girls that play poker are hot to me, even if its really just the market conditions of being the only girl at the table.

Honestly I think my posts are gold, but I dont think people actually dig threw threads and read every post, I certainly never do, unless it involves someone I know personally.