I'm too young to have any first hand experience of poker culture pre-Moneymaker boom however it seems likely the Moneymaker effect probably has a lot to do with why there is such a huge disparity among the genders even today. Pretty much all the poker marketing was pointed at people who identify with Moneymaker, ie schlubby everymen. Hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising was poured into acquiring this type of customer by all the various poker sites and casinos. Poker's popularity has dipped but a large percentage of both recs and pros are those who the advertising targeted a decade ago. The market is now smaller so advertising dollars have to be spent efficiently which means continuing to target the markets the various gaming companies know they can acquire.

Yes, there is a certain level of sexism, misogyny, intimidation, etc. that plays a part in why so few women find themselves in card rooms however women have also just never really been a target or priority in said card rooms' marketing strategies since poker boomed all those years ago.

Yes, its distressing as players to see such a disparity and its a noble effort to create more inclusive and welcoming environments for interested female participants but ultimately there's never going to be a big shift until these billion dollar companies are incentived to market to female customers in a big and aggressive way.

It's possible that there is a wider gap between actual behavior towards women compared to the expected behavior towards women vs 30 years ago. It's not wrong for standards to have risen over that time.

I'm curious about the gender ratios in online poker.

That sounds a lot like the reasoning behind the massive nationwide attempts for decades to bring more women into fields like math and engineering, that have pretty much failed, and dramatically so. Even with lower standards, free education and the promise of jobs on graduation they avoid it in droves.

Men never needed advertising to create and play in home games, because poker appeals to the average male but does not correspondingly appeal to the average female. If it did, women would have had their own home games, long before the boom, no advertising needed.

Not saying this is fact and tbh I haven't even thought about it but I read a study a few years back that women are more genetically or psychologically more adverse to risk then men. Can't remember which reason they cited...

If there's a grain of truth to this article that might explain why women instinctively pick stud and Limit games rather then NL where one hand can stack a player.

My guess is it's less the form of poker and more the poker boom targeting men.

This. Poker rooms are full of slimey degens and hatchet faced sour pros/wannabes, far outnumbering amiable and engaging recs who were mostly chased out of the game long ago. They are a terrible place for women and when it comes down to it poker isnt really that wonderful a game. Its little surprise they opt for the pretty lights and interesting and varied features of the rows of slots

Wouldn't this be better posted in TWSS?

I remember seeing research that was conducted in 2011 or 12 that was convinced; women favour card games over action games like typical mainstream video games.

Now, I have no recollection of where the study was conducted but it was some marketing study and seemed reputable at the time looking at it.

Personally, I agree with many posters in here, believing it could be the all-in shoves on the river or turn that caused the decline in women players(nothing wrong with those players not liking the super aggressive factor of no-limit games).

The poker community, may need to adapt to a more mixed game format, that can still have no-limit but less often than cap or pot-limit games.
If it were to be healthier for the game, bring more players and keep players alive enough to learn more of the fundamentals, then great!

If it wasn't for the online poker ban in America, we may have seen a surprising growth on Pokerstars or other sites that offer mixed games but who knows.

Females in general are more risk averse than men

Hence the higher numbers observed playing limit games

They dont like the idea of risking all their chips on one hand unless its the nuts

This has something to do with ovaries and natural biology Im pretty sure

Hi Kevmath:

You're right and it's now fixed.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Everyone:

Just a quick note and a slightly different way of looking at this.

Expert poker players, no matter what the form of poker, play aggressively. But it's my opinion that the game which is most forgiving to a passive player is seven-card stud (because it's often correct to chase) and the game that is least forgiving is no-limit hold 'em. So does this mean that poor playing women who tend to play too passively will do much better in seven-card stud and thus are more likely to survive and become regular players than they would in the other forms of poker.

Of course, this exact statement could also be said about men who play passively, and they do exist.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi winwin:

Well, let me give you an idea of what it was like to play poker in the cardrooms of Gardena Ca where I started out around 1980. First, there were no house dealers and the games were all dealt by the players, and there was often an adversarial relationship between the players and the management. Second, the games were full of props who would often soft play each other. (I even remember playing in a six handed game which was me and five props). And third, there were practices like "decking" which was a way to give the floor people a huge amount in tips. And fourth, there was less supervision on the floor, and foul language was much more common.

This clearly produced an environment where women were treated worse than they are today. But yet, there was a higher percentage of women playing than there are today, and the games were only forms of draw poker -- Jacks or Better to Open High Draw and Ace-to-Five California Lowball.

Best wishes,
Mason

The slots were kind of boring back then Mason. Simple fruit machines. These days they are designed with input from psychologists and are fun and varied. Poker as a game doesn't stand a chance competing in the enjoyment/addicting stakes even if male players attitudes and appearances improve hugely

Hi bumpnrun;

This is a good point and it's something I never thought of.

Best wishes,
Mason

My LC row of slots is probably 55% female. They get a little dopamine release each time they hit the button, bigger releases on free game features etc.

People don't mind losing money, but they do want to be entertained. monotony of poker has no chance

Let's put this into reference just so you can understand what you're asking MM. Obviously I respect your contributions to the game, but this question is incredibly loaded. Only on 2+2 do people think someone in blackface is cool. You wouldn't find this level of approval on reddit. Only here is anti-feminist discourse treated as if it's logical. It rivals men's rights advocates on other dark corners of the internet in places labeled hate groups by the SPLC.

So when you ask here if women have a natural disposition to certain forms of poker as if the reason women don't play NLHE at casinos is biological, you're going to get a ton of people saying it's true. Why? Because they don't see the sexism in casinos as problematic. You want to know why women dropped out of poker? It's not because of the action games, it's because of the fact that anywhere you go to play are men making sexist jokes, talking about massage girls and servers as if they're courtesans, and being generally crude and disrespectful. What kind of woman would want to hang out there or in cardrooms?

I don't think it was better in the 70's but I think people were better able to hold their tongues.

You think the average 30-50 yr old white male in the 70's was less misogynistic and degrading to women than a 24 year old nerdy millennial of today?

I can honestly say most women I experience at the poker table play pretty tight poker. I think this might go along with being less risk averse and why they aren't huge fans of NL hold em. Obviously there;s rare cases like Vanessa Selbst but that's what I've seen. I don't think I've ever seen a woman bluff at the table.

All of the above pretty much summarizes the reason we see fewer women playing in b&m poker rooms. Let's be honest, even some of us men are disgusted by what we see in the poker rooms: from filthy players who don't take shower for days, o those eating greasy food with their hands at the table, many men who berate and are super nasty at the table, and half the people who go to the bathroom and don't wash their hands. It is generally not a good atmosphere anyway, especially for women.

Lastly, women are significantly more practical, pragmatic and realistic than we are: Significant majority of NLH players are break-even players at best, with the majority actually being losing players. We just don't admit it, and hate to admit it to ourselves that this is a game that has become increasingly difficult to 'beat' for any reasonable amount of money. But many women decide who sometimes try the game, and even tolerate the dirty poker rooms, realize it's not a game that the majority can make a profitable living off of, and leave to do something else, as opposed to us, who always believe that we are one step away from riches and stardom.

Yeah 18% of americans think they are feminist http://www.vox.com/2015/4/8/8372417/...-equality-poll

Academic feminism is destroying its brand. People believe in equality not feminist politics

People in the actual real world outside campuses dont think academic feminism theories about gender make any sense. How could it? It ignores evolution of the human mind and basic hormone makeup of humans. Its answer to everything is far-left fantasy where everyone is born with a blank state and they can be nurtured to a stem job.

Good video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE

Man, the females that make it in the poker world must be real super humans to ignore all the sexism and just print money off gross men

Hi CandyDarling:

I don't think someone in blackface is cool and I have virtually no respect for the person you're referring to.

Well, you're entitled to your opinion. But my question is serious and it happens to be an issue on the management side of the poker industry.

Again, when I talk to poker room management, one concern they have is why there are so few women playing poker. The problem with your statement, and this assumes my observation is correct, is that even if there is sexism in the casino environment today, in my opinion it was much worse years ago and a higher percentage of women were playing poker then.

You may have a point about the message girls, and I wish the cardrooms would get rid of them. I find them distracting and when someone wants a message, then often turn the chair around and take up a lot more space.

Were you playing in the 70's? I wasn't, but I was playing in the 80's. And at least in those places where I played, the language was far worse.

Best wishes,
Mason

I think Mason is mostly right, though by far the game I play that has the most women in it is L08. Every 7CS game I've played in a casino was entirely old men.

I think there are fewer women in NLHE not because they don't want to play aggressively, but because a lot of male players think it benefits them to -act- in an intimidating manner. It is entirely reasonable for a woman to become subconsciously very uncomfortable if a large man wearing shades and a hood is silently staring her down every time she has to act, even if there is rationally no real threat of violence present.

I see even fewer women playing NLHE tournaments.
One interesting fact that occurs to me: I've played about 20 WSOP events in my life. Thus I've played against a few hundred different players, most of whom are entirely unknown to me.

Of these couple hundred, about a dozen have been women. But every single woman I've played against at the World Series was a known player (some mostly as the wife/gf of a famous pro or a media personality). But I have never played against an -unknown- woman at the WSOP.

Hi Nick:

One thing which I'll use your post to stress is that there is no excuse from poor behavior from men. It should be obvious from the response we see in this thread is that this is a problem.

Best wishes,
Mason

Probably half the women I play against are passive Asians who run the gamut from loose to tight.

I checked Casino Arizona's limit v. spread limit games. There were a few more in the limit games but not by very much.

And as long as we're at this, I can't count the number of times I've wished that I could morph into a woman when I play bec so many of the men are so damn stupid when it comes to playing against them: They don't give them credit, they refuse to let a woman beat them, they get tilted so easily when it happens, etc. A good woman player has got to make a decent percent more than the same level man.