While the traditional view of gambling is of men sitting around a poker table, women are now the largest growing portion of gamblers both in brick-and-mortar casinos and online casinos. If you want to know who is better at gambling, men or women, then you will first want to look at the statistics of players both in the real world and online.
Who Plays?
Both men and women enjoy gambling. New trends in online gambling, however, show that there are more women gamblers online than there are men. This may be surprising if you are accustomed to the stereotype that shows men as the main population of gamblers. One of the main differences between men and women who gamble is that women are more likely to learn how to play their favorite games online, and then visit a local casino to play later. Because of the simplicity of learning online, it is possible to learn to play casino games online with little or no money, allowing women to hone their skills before making a wager on their favorite games such as roulette, slots, and blackjack. On the other hand, more men than women play informal games, such as poker, with their friends with little or no money.
Poker and Emotional Intelligence
One benefit of being a woman, according to some experts, is that women are better at reading emotions and facial expressions than men. In the game of poker, everyone knows the importance of being able to bluff to win more effectively. Studies show that women are better able to tell when players are bluffing or telling the truth, making them slightly better poker players than men. One of the more interesting facts about poker, however, is that there are typically more men than women who participate in poker games.
The drawback to these statistics is that women also tend to be more aggressive when they play poker, a trait that can often lead to winning more money. This does not mean that all women play in the same way, but as a general rule, it has been shown that women tend to win up to fifteen percent more than men when playing poker. Although women have the advantage in a game of poker, they are not always represented in large, high-stakes tournaments. In fact, women only comprise a small percentage of players in national and global poker tournaments.
Current Trends in Gambling
Women are no longer sitting at the slots or at home playing card games. More women are joining the leagues of professional gamblers, but until they are represented more equally it is impossible to say who is better at gambling between the genders. While there has not, at least at the current date, being a woman who has won the most popular national poker tournament, this could simply be because women are so poorly represented in the game. In the small percentage that is available for study, however, women do seem to beat men when it comes to casino gambling. This could be because they spend more time online in gambling-related activities before they make a wager or simply because of their natural abilities for the game.
These findings do seem to blow the most common stereotypes about men and women gamblers out of the water. Men have long been considered to be the best gamblers, but this could simply be because women have just begun entering the gambling scene in the last few decades. It is possible that the current finding will change as more women begin gambling in larger, well-known tournaments, and that men are better players. But until then, studies are showing that women have what it takes to win, even more so than men.