This is bad science. Most meta-analyses of findings (like the ones you are citing) show an overall lack of statistical significance in any claim about differences between genders (see http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1990-14384-001 and http://psycnet.apa.org/buy/1988-35304-001). There's no legitimate way to control for stereotype threat. Even if you were to take the findings you cite as statistically significant and replicable (which they aren't), the differences certainly aren't acute enough to explain the performance gap, let alone the 96/4 split in representation overall.

Bridge would be the closest analogy (majority women players, 0 women in the top 100). I think the most logical explanation for lack of representation at the top is sociological. Developing people are conditioned to behave based on their assigned gender roles (men are traditionally rewarded for aggressive and competitive behavior, while women are traditionally chastised for aggressive and competitive behavior). These norms are enforced by both the ingroups (women -> women) and outgroups (men -> women), as well as by societal structures at large (gender segregation in competition).

As for why there are so few women in poker overall, that's due to the above as well as social norms and the compounding affects when gender dictates who plays what, and who's invited. You see boys at like 10yo who are playing 5 card draw telling a girl who's interested "this is a game for boys, you're not invited", directly mirroring norms they learned from media and those around them. Adults who learn to play poker from joining their friends' "Boy's Night". These things all compound, and I know for a fact that if you go to almost any table in the country as a woman, you're going to be reminded in one way or another of your gender, when it's implicit and accepted that men are welcome.

Your citations are close to 20 years old!! I will give a detailed analysis later. Read this for a more up to date analysis - https://carlsonschool.umn.edu/sites/...%20Paper_0.pdf

Btw may I know what is your background - have you done gender differnces research?

Please identify the citations I quote which you claim to be 'not statistically significant and not replicable'. Please give specific paper references for this.

Also See

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...?dopt=Citation

http://docs.autismresearchcentre.com...g-The-Mind.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...64661302019046

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...44536303000117

Do you have any data to back the claim that this is mostly a social phenomenon and do not have any brain-behaviour relationship. From your statements it appears you have very little idea about the science behind gender differences; let alone commenting on what is good or bad science

Detailed Response:

This is definitely going to be a TL;DR post. I will say a bit about me that should justify my making this post; I never discuss topics that I don’t have knowledge in. My PhD work was on social cognition in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder with focus on gender differences in control and ASD population. I used psychophysics and neurophysiological techniques (functional neuroimaging, eye-tracking, and EMG) to study this research domain. I have primarily referenced (in the above posts) published articles by Prof. Simon Baron Cohen, Director of Autism Research Centre at University of Cambridge and a world renowned scientist in the field of gender differences and Autism. He is a very approachable scientist and if any of you have specific questions regarding his research work, you can drop him an email. Fun fact: He is the cousin of Sacha Baron Cohen
Let us look at the claim of gender differences in brain-behaviour relationship
1. Playing poker or solving math problems are end behaviour that involves multiple cognitive processing domains. From lower-order visual processing, working memory and executive functions to name a few. These domains are all a function of an individual’s brain interacting simultaneously with internal and external information flow. Hence it is more useful to look at differences in the cognitive domains rather than end behaviour alone and the former can be achieved through various techniques.
The above posted papers as well as various others have now clearly established gender differences in cognitive processing. The ones I have posted are primarily on in systemizing-empathising as that is the one cognitive domain I initially referred to (not mathematical abilities and/or verbal abilities). If any one of you think you can refute the results from these papers please directly contact the corresponding author of the papers. They will be happy to and best-equipped to answer all questions.
It is not useful to look at some 20 year old meta-analysis papers on gender differences in verbal or mathematical abilities to gage the current literature on gender differences in cognitive processing.
Btw neither of the two old papers was quoted by me in the original post. I asked to refer to ARC’s publications on the topic of gender differences in systemizing-empathising processing. I have now given specific references in regards to this topic.

2. Now consider poker – I assume it is established that there is a significant gender difference in poker player population. Assuming this and considering playing poker is a function of different cognitive processes it can be hypothesized that the gender differences in the different cognitive domains involved in playing poker would influence gender split observed within the said population.
To test this hypothesis one needs to identify
• These cognitive domains – lower order domains like systemizing and empathising as well as higher order domains like risk-taking behaviour, executive decision-making, working memory to name a few
• Design experiments to test these domains in control and poker playing population stratified by gender.
Our brain never functions in isolation; it is always and interaction between internal and external cues. So in case of poker as well, environment (social norms included) will have an effect on brain-behaviour relationship; To what degree is it inherently biological and what role does environment have is of course a more complicated question.
This could be studied by specifically studying female poker players; what was inherently different in their biology and/or environment that made them select this profession?
OP posted a question which when considered in depth can prove to be a highly complex study and would prove to be an interesting research topic.
Humble brag: I don’t do ‘bad science’ or talk ‘bad science’. My published papers are in peer-reviewed International journals with above average Impact Factors and my primary and secondary PhD supervisors are power-house researchers in the above mentioned field.

The thing with online is you just don’t know from a screen name

You just know it from the womens events. It´s really sad, I use to play those Womens specials on Stars and there are not so many women in those tourneys. Too bad.

I think there's more women playing than you think. I play on ACR quite often where it says if its male or female playing and there is almost always atleast 1 female at a 6 max table sometimes even multiple. It's not rare at all.

playing right now, 2/5 are female.

if you trust literally anything on ACR, you have a leak in your game

Good info!! Amazing, that you didn't get any replies to this post.

walls of text tend not to curry much in the way of replies...

I am a female, and I have to say that I enjoy more Live game, just because I like taking the trip to the casino, going to the restaurants and interacting with other players.

I find online poker to be quite depressing for the most part, but more profitable.

Lol why do you give up?

Maybe people target advertisment to men more than women in general (its a theory, I dont really know).

And also what entertains women is very different from men. As we all know, there is general selection of things that are considered to be "stereotype" for girls and boys and our parents teach us these things and develop interest inside us based on them. Perhaps thats why women arent really interested in strategies in poker or roulette, theyre more interested in make up lets say so their search history could contain eyeshadow, not martingale strategy in roulette haha.

The way a person is raised is also a factor, like if lets say Alexa's dad introduced her to poker and she played with him, then she might still play poker during week even when shes thirty.

Also, this is all just what I came up with and what makes sense to me..

Pop my cherry here for you kats..

Female ENTJ. Learned Hellmuth was an ENTJ and after watching him realized our personality type is primed for poker. Hard work ethic, aggressiveness, being able to read others like books, it's not done me any favors during online play but Live I'm quite the hellcat.

Also, females with ENTJ personality type comprise roughly 1% to 2% of the greater population so we are rare to come by in general. Was always curious to know Liv B and Maria H MBTI...some say Matusou is an ENTJ but he is far too emotional to be on our team imo

I don't think this has anything to do with societal norms. At least in the home games I've organised, the proportion of women who accepted the invitation has always been lower, regardless of how many of them were invited. They just tend to find it boring!

I know someone who won a ton of those events from his grandma's account

Most people in touch with reality (and the scientific literature) knows there are huge gender differences in interest, competitive lends, risk taking, and probably the impact of representation. Most of the denial of this comes from outdated social constructivist ideology, but it is wrong and not many people really believe it.

But it is an unfortunate reality. I hate playing poker with 8 dudes. Everyone wants more women in poker, or chess, or all the possible STEM fields. But I am skeptical that in 50 years you will walk into a poker room and see 50% women. That would be great, tho.

hi i am new here and am curious to how many women are playing online in 2020? i have only played live poker but am gonna start playing online, i haven't met any women around where i live that play online heh but i'm gonna start sometime this week so yay me

Trying to get my wife into it

I am a woman.
In my opinion, this is due to motivation and incentives. It will not be possible to motivate yourself independently for a long time. And when you are looking for motivation from the outside, then immediately society has a big influence and imposes social roles.
And it's not easy to identify a woman when you play online at a table with strangers. But I notice a lot of women when I join certain poker communities.

I believe imho the most general, basic, natural and simple answer to the OP's question is b/c it takes a certain set of umn, how shall I put it ............balls. Forgive me, but the question is like asking "why don't more short white or asian men play basketball in the NBA?"

Uh oh....... did I say or do something wrong now?