How can we get more women to play poker?
Barry Carter is joined by Joanne Bartley from PokerStars Women to discuss how we can encourage more women to play poker.
Last month I had the pleasure of interviewing the first double-EPT champion, Vicky Coren. There has been a lot of talk that her win will encourage a lot of female players to take up the game, and Vicky herself confirmed that she had received a lot of feedback from people saying she had influenced them to try poker.
She also confirmed to me what I imagined was one of the biggest barriers for getting women to try poker, she told me:
“I think women are a subset of the group of people who have a sneaking suspicion they’d love poker and they might be quite good at it, but they’re too shy to try. I remember when I wanted to start playing in casinos I was very shy. I used to go into the Vic and be too nervous to go into the card room. I’m very glad I got over that.”
I understand this completely. I have always felt that the card room was an intimidating environment for anyone, not just women. We all want more women to play the game, so this week I spoke to Joanne Bartley, the marketing manager for PokerStars Women. For the last few years PokerStars have been hosting regular women-only tournaments, have a dedicated PokerStars Women micro site, and regularly blog about female success at the tables. I asked her if she agreed that the biggest challenge was making the point of entry less intimidating for women?
The wrong type of marketing?
“I actually think the image of poker can be quite aggressive. Even the money side of the game doesn’t appeal to women quite as much as the social side of it. The point Vicky made is that poker is fun. I think if more women were aware of that, and got into poker through more of a friendly home game environment instead, then that would show poker at its best.”
This is a really interesting point. I’ve always felt that one of the best organic forms of marketing the game has is that there are no barriers in poker. You can compete at the highest level regardless of your age, race, gender or background.
However, we do focus too much on the winners in poker, which probably works overall because men are generally more competitive by nature. It seems that the challenges the industry faces making poker more appealing to women is exactly the same as the challenges it faces appealing to recreational players. Perhaps we can kill two birds with one stone if we just focus on making the game seem more about fun and less about money?
“It’s really good that this is being addressed now. We went through a period where we only talked about the big wins. For the good of the game we have to accept that people will lose, but not mind losing. We tend to look up to the winners, but the losers matter, and as long as they are having fun while they do it, that’s ok.”
“It is very hard to sell poker to mainstream women, there is still a resistance to it. Right now we are trying more to convert play money women to micro stakes games. Things like Vicky winning is massive for that. We think there will be some benefits for mainstream interest because she did it, and made it look fun.”
The rise of female gamers
PokerStars Women started to grow around the same time as the popularity of mobile poker on smartphones and tablets. In recent years there has been a huge rise in the percentage of female gamers in general, thanks to smartphone games like Candy Crush and Angry Birds. Estimates suggest that now 45% of gamers are women. Has PokerStars seen a similar correlation since they introduced their mobile app?
“The percentage of mobile players is very good, but even more significant is our Facebook app. The female stats for that are really impressive. The app is for play chips, it’s social and it’s easy because you are on Facebook anyway. It is still very self-contained, it doesn’t mean they will always convert to real money."
"There are two quite distinct groups of female players, those who stick with play money and those who want to try real money poker. Around 10% of our real money traffic is female, but a great many more of our Facebook players are female.”
Will there always be sexism in poker?
I’m a pragmatist when it comes to the issue of getting more women to the tables, I think we should just do whatever works. If that means making female-only environments to play poker, then that’s fine by me.
One area where I must admit I haven’t entirely formed an opinion is that of the use of sexualised images of women to promote the game. As an editor I try to reduce that as much as possible, but I’ve been as guilty as anyone as putting a picture of the Royal Flush Girls in our Daily Rewind to appeal to our members.
I wonder if this helps or hinders the progress of female poker? I think it would be unfair to suggest that poker is any more sexist than any other industry, and the extent to which we sexualise women is probably in keeping with how the rest of society does it. PokerStars don’t go down the road of posting images of bikini clad girls on their marketing. Their female pros are genuine poker players, but predominantly they are still very attractive players who probably got their deals in some part based on their looks. I asked Joanne for her opinion on whether sexy images of women helped or hindered the growth of female poker:
“It makes sense for the demographic. If 90% of poker players are men, it makes sense to show attractive women in the marketing. I don’t like it, but I understand why it makes sense. At PokerStars we try to be more responsible. Our pros are attractive, but they have earned their place on the team.”
I don’t think there will ever be an absolute right or wrong answer in this debate. The thing that really pleases me is that there seems to be a win-win taking place with the way PokerStars are promoting women’s poker. There probably will always be a selection bias when it comes to how online poker rooms select their female sponsored pros; the attractive girl will always have the advantage there. But as long as they are a genuine player and inspire other women to play, just like Vicky Coren is doing right now, I think it works out in everyone’s best interests.
More importantly, marketing the game to be more appealing to women seems to face almost exactly the same challenges as making the game more appealing to recreational players in general. It is about reasserting that poker is a fun social activity first and foremost, and that is something I believe benefits everyone in poker.
What do you think the barriers are for potential new female players interested in the game? Do you think we should market the game differently for a female audience? Are women-only promotions like PokerStars Women a good idea, or do you think they are sexist? Let me know your views in the comments box.
 Barry Carter is the editor of PokerStrategy.com and the co-author of The Mental Game of Poker 1 & 2. He has been working in the poker industry for nine years and in 2013 won the APAT Award for Best Poker Media Provider. You can learn more about his work here.
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