Quote:
Originally Posted by NickMPK
This just hasn't been my experience. I've had many female friends who like to play poker in home games, but have no desire to play in casinos because the environment is uninviting for them.
And it's not even like poker in card rooms was always this off-putting to most women. Take a look at depiction of California cardrooms in the 1970's movie "California Split"...the customers appear to be at least one-third women. Obviously this is a fictional account, but it squares with real-life descriptions of 1970's cardroom poker that I've heard.
And the participation of women in casino poker has definitely declined over the 15 years that I have been playing, both in my personal experience and in statistics I've seen. It's not the basic nature of poker that is driving women away, it is how the culture around it has evolved in recent decades.
I admit there are more women in home games, especially tournament style, but those are usually less expensive and with friends they'd hang out with anyway. I actually don't play in any home games because there is not enough money to be won. I'd seriously rather play Balderdash or Scrabble or similar. (BTW, my husband is a professional Scrabble player, but has stopped going to tournaments because there aren't any close by.)
I'm a woman, so I pay close attention to when other women are around, and I have not seen a change in the ~15 years I've been playing. It's basically been the same. I see very few in my underground games and in Vegas, where I head three or four times a year. In my underground games, all of the other women (about five) except for one are short-stackers and usually only show up when the jackpots are big. Most of them are there with their significant others, too. I'm one of the few who plays on my own -- I play much more often than my husband does.
Also, the men who are unpleasant to me are unpleasant to the other men, too. But I'm very comfortable around men and not easily offended.
Back on track, we are actually staying at Sahara through a promotion gone bad, but I'm excited to see the poker room. The hotel rooms look pretty nice online, too. We'll be there late March, so I'll post an update.