I was actually thinking of starting a thread like this two weeks ago when I saw the stats on the WSOP. The participation of women in poker is at an historic low. ONE woman under 26 entered the Main Event. Similarly, I believe only one woman entered the One Drop, and one entered the 50k (in its first years, the number of female entries was seven).

So women are not just not entering poker, they are being actively driven away.

I don't think women in general are less likely to be drawn to gambling or competitive games or social games. Just look at the demographics of slot machine players, or facebook social game players, or even tournament Scrabble players at all but the highest levels.

And even in my personal experience, I've played in multiple home games that had several regular female players. But I think a couple things about casino poker make them less likely to participate in that environment:

1.) Even absent overt sexism (which I don't see very often), certain behaviors read very differently when directly by a man toward a man than by a man toward a women. Most obviously, STARING. A man staring stone-faced at another man is mildly weird. A man staring this way at a woman is deeply creepy and may be interpreted instinctually as physically threatening. These behaviors should be considered a breach of etiquette in a welcoming game.

2.) Casinos have moved every year more exclusively toward big-bet only games. But the home games I played in were rarely just NLHE. We'd play a range of games, the majority of which were limit format. And when I've played LHE or LO8 in casinos, the games are much more likely to include women than NLHE or PLO games. We should be doing more to bring back limit games in casinos, which are not just more appealing to women, but more forgiving to new players that are need to sustain the game regardless in any case.

3.) I believe most importantly, there needs to be a critical mass of women players for many women to feel comfortable playing. In my home games, there were always at least two women at the table. Yet when I see a women playing at a casino, she is almost always the sole female at the table. Regardless of how she is treated, this player is always going to be aware that she is alone at the table in at least one regard.

One of the reasons I believe casinos poker (at least in the US) has succeeded so well at being racially integrated is simply that the numbers are such at there is no obvious single racial majority or racial minority. When I sit down at a poker table, I really have no expectation what the racial make-up of that table will be, unlike almost every other activity I participate. But a women sitting down at a poker table I'm sure expects that everyone else will be male.

So I think the -best- thing that casinos could do to encourage women to play is to make sure that a recreational female player isn't the only female player at the table. The easiest way to do this would be to hire prop women players. I assume if casino can hire exclusively female dealers for their party pits, they could also hire exclusively female prop players. Of course the goal of these props would be to encourage other women to gamble, not just encourage drunk men to gamble. But having a more socially inviting player pool might encourage recreational players of both genders to give it a try as well!

total male degen gamblers > total female degen gamblers = less female poker players

Which poster was that ? I may have missed it.

Look SD, post away to your heart's content, but your content remains fair game for comment. The way your content in that instance was self-validating, sandwiched around some throw-away blurbs, amused me. So, yeah, I posted a reply making fun of your post, style, and rhetorical devices.

(fwiw, using a Yiddish term to succinctly describe your posting personna was not "racist" in that other thread, but I'll respect your hyper-sensitivity to terms you do not understand.)

yeah but women are the only winners in the poker game of life

By the way, SD, I think this above quoted post presents the best ideas in the thread.

So to be fair and balanced, I'll give it a +100. ..... that post was a good one.

I am not hyper sensitive, but I think you can see how out of the blue using that word could be perceived, but happy to accept it was purely the adjective you felt best fitted what you wanted to say.

Okay thank you. Time maybe to stop attacking my posting style please. I am already making my posts 100 words or less because they were often way too long.

Also the written word is not my personality, it is more *my mind's* personality, which is typically what the written word represents. IRL (in person) I am way less forthright.

The idea that women are being actively driven away is laughable if it wasn't so pervasive and destructive.

Women seem to have no problem playing co-rec sports in their nightly leagues with men where they'll *gasp* be touched.

Does the OP have a source to backup that they're "always" being pointed out for being female at the table. Seem to have no problems showing as much cleavage as possible.

Rake. They're the rake. If you quote it, quote it right.

I didn't "pin it" on anything. I pointed out one area where we can improve the game to make it more welcoming to them.

Good post. I was hoping more would come up with suggestions.

OPs source is all the poker women he knows. Sorry but I have yet to conduct a peer-reviewed study on this phenomena.

And as noted, the women are aware they can use their physical attributes to their advantage but even that gets old after awhile and it shouldn't be expected of them.

I would love if some of the female posters here shared their experiences.

Why do we have to categorised the player pool...I think that if we just be light hearted and fun and don't do like monkeys and protect the recs whoever they are (women,old guys, tourists) the poker will rise to unexpected standards

Possibly a societal stigma associated with women playing poker (gambling).

E.g. if a man has a small bet on the football at the weekend it's a hobby or he likes a flutter, but if a woman does the same people might think she has a gambling problem.

If a man has a few drinks he's one of the lads, if a woman does the same she's out of control or has a drink problem.

These kinds of gender discriminatory perceptions in society may be putting off women from playing live poker for fear of what others might think about them.

You used the word boom, this you are a boomtard and don't reserve the rights are players get.

It's pretty normal for organizations to have a look at their sales/attendance/engagement, try to find demographic segments that are not buying or are underrepresented, and work on ways to improve that. Of course that doesn't preclude making overall improvements as well.

I suspect you are lying unless you only know one female player.

I've spent a lot of time at the table and women are usually treated like everyone else or they are treated with extra kindness and respect. Once in a while I've heard a male say something rough or explicit(not at all derogatory) and another male will tell him to be more civil due to the presence of a lady. I understand that some women are offended when a male opens a door for them.

Bingo

Is this English?

I can see that

It isn't something that happens EVERY time I sit at a low-stakes table, although it is definitely something I see more frequently in cash than in tournaments. I derive some benefit from being a semi-regular at one out-of-State casino where I play because enough of the dealers know me that they keep things in check.

The worst times tend to be the late night shifts though. Early morning hours are not as bad in terms of comments.

On occasion, it devolves even further from just denigrating women at the table (there are times where I am not the only one) to getting in the realm of homophobic comments once they realize I am a lesbian. Sadly, some actually find it acceptable given the 'speech play' rationalizations given by Kassouf for his constant chatter.

If your suspicions are any indication of your ability to suspect a bluff, I'd like to play where you play. Easy money. I know many women who either play, used to play, or would like to play but feel intimidated.

As noted earlier, they don't want the extra kindness or the chivalrous man trying to stick up for them. They want to be treated the same as everyone else. And it's not that every poker player does it, but enough do to make it an issue for them.

Have no idea if you mean the sports book or something else...if the book, the basic issue isn't being risk averse as much as it likely is not taking the time to be informed at the level necessary to make a lot of the bets without the bet being -EV. Ironically, when I was in Vegas, I found some books that would not take bets or put lines out for the Women's College World Series...their reason being that they didn't know enough about the sport. I did find lines downtown and did extremely well precisely because I DID know the sport (having played helps with evaluating teams).

Race tracks...been a while since I was at either a horse track or a dog track. Found the horses boring but liked the dogs. Unfortunately, the dog track closest to where I was at the time ceased to be a viable entity. But there were plenty of women in lines placing bets at both...whether they were there because of the love of the animals, the sun, the after-race shows or to get their gamble on, I have no idea. It was an afternoon of cheap entertainment for me with a chance to maybe make a few hundred bucks...

Robbery defendants are increasing...often at pharmacies, but that gets into a whole different rationale and demographic.

If live poker consisted only of tournaments there would be more women in the game IMO because it would be and feel much more like a sport, with trophies, rankings and prestige.

Hendon Mob could help things become more this way by having separate GPI rankings exclusively for <$150 comps.

But it's live cash games that make poker less of a sport and more a den of iniquity inhabited by some (a small % of) undesirable types, where testosterone levels increase and can be intimidating.

Obv WSOP etc *is* essentially just comps, but players are developed lower down the chain.

I observe a lot of poker play and poker players (I'm a dealer), so I have some impressions of the things stated/suggested so far.

First, I don't think women are, in general, less prone to tilt, although they may be less prone to verbal explosions upon tilting. Nor are they less likely to gamble in general - I see slots and BJ tables and what I think are mah Jong tables crowded with women. Something about poker specifically seems more off putting than slots or roulette, not sure what. Maybe it's because you're taking money from other people than from a faceless and presumably rich casino? At any rate there are plenty of women in the casino on any random day, but few playing poker.

Second, I would agree that women are more common at our limit games. That demographic skews older as well, at least in my room. Also, I think it might be fair to say that a type of player that might be off putting to new players, perhaps women in particular, is the loud, belligerent, sometimes drunk but 99.9% of the time male player who is spewing off chips and commenting on literally everything. Great for the game, since they are often an ATM, but not great for a generally fun, convivial atmosphere for newer players.

Finally, and I've said this about my own past experiences as a player, that while I think overt incidents of gender/sexual harassment are rare, when they do happen it's pretty off putting. And more often than not, when they happen, no one calls the douche canoe out on it. Everyone just gets silent and uncomfortable at best, or try to laugh it off, which just makes it worse. Yeah, we are all adults/thick skin yadda yadda yadda, but even one spot in which some dude randomly calls you the C word because you stacked him may be enough to drive not only that female player out of the poker world, but any others who saw/heard it, or ones she told, especially if she wasn't having a ton of fun so far for whatever reason.

I think poker can be fairly intimidating for any new player, and I do my best to help out obviously new players when I have one at my table, but it's probably exponentially more intimidating for new potential women players to walk into a room filled with mostly unknown men.