Most areas of gambling are predominately male-driven – we’ve known that for a fact now. Stereotypically, online casino, sports betting and poker are areas that have been populated primarily by males around the world, and have been advertised as such. Ads such as this one are targeted specifically at males in their 30s, featuring good-looking women, well-dressed men in positions of power and dark-toned, muted colors clearly set to appeal to men. Meanwhile, bingo is presented as being exclusively the domain of women, with ads like this being targeted specifically at the fair sex. Notice the bright colors, the women who seem like your neighbors and not some supermodels and the disempowered men (to the point where they want to be women because it offers more benefits than being a man). This clear divide has been very clearly established since the dawn of online casino, and advertisers and casinos has seen it fit to indulge it… But according to statistics, it seems to be very gradually disappearing in at least some areas.
According to a brand new report by the Spanish Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego, which is an authority that regulates gambling, gaming and other similar activities, female players who gamble across the various gambling sites regulated by the DGOJ have increased in numbers by 53.5% over the last year, which, as you can imagine, is a significant increase. Of course, that doesn’t really mean much, considering the fact that men still make up 83% of all gamblers, but progress is definitely being made towards diversifying the Spanish player base. If this keeps going, very gradually, year by year, the gender disparity will begin to disappear. No effort even needs to happen on the part of the casinos – this will happen naturally as more players of both genders begin to play. And more players ARE coming, with casino seeing an 80% increase in players, bingo getting a 37% increase, and sports betting being third with a 34.4% increase. Next year, chances are that the numbers will be even better.
We’ve already seen the exact same thing happen in a different, yet slightly relevant market – videogaming. For years, videogames were the domain of boys thanks to Nintendo’s strategy of marketing their revolutionary NES system as a toy (and toys at the time were segregated by gender). Up until the early to mid 2000s, videogames were a niche, with a major game being considered a success if it sold only 2-3 million copies. But as the market expanded naturally with the flow of more players who wanted to try videogames out, more girls and women began playing, and as a result the market gradually adjusted to accommodate them. Much like how gambling has its bingo sections now, “games for girls” were a very real phenomenon in the 2000s, but they’re almost gone now, as the amount of males and females who play videogames is more or less equal. The same thing will likely happen to gambling on a global scale – the only question is when, and whether the industry will actively try to prevent it.