Women and Gambling Statistics 2026

Women now represent roughly one in three online casino players, one in four US sports bettors, and just 4% of major live poker tournament fields. The gap between those numbers tells a story that most gambling industry reports skip over entirely.

This page collects the most current data on female gambling participation, behavior, and outcomes across online casinos, poker, sports betting, and crypto gambling. Every statistic is sourced from primary research: the UK Gambling Commission, SOFTSWISS platform data, the American Gaming Association, Hendon Mob tournament records, GamCare helpline reports, and peer-reviewed academic studies.

Last updated: May 2026. This is an evergreen resource, refreshed annually with new data.

Key Statistics (2026)

The following headline figures summarize the current state of women and gambling across formats, regions, and data sources. Each stat is expanded with full context and sourcing in the sections below.

These are the headline numbers. The sections below break down the data behind each one: who is gambling, where, in what formats, and what the research says about gender-specific patterns in both recreational and problem gambling.

Women in Online Gambling

Female participation in online gambling has grown steadily over the past five years, driven by mobile access, live dealer game shows, and the shift from physical venues to digital platforms. The data below draws primarily from the UK Gambling Commission’s GSGB 2024 survey and SOFTSWISS platform reporting.

How Many Women Gamble Online

The most reliable national dataset comes from the UK Gambling Commission’s Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB), a push-to-web survey conducted by NatCen and the University of Glasgow with roughly 20,000 respondents per year.

The headline participation gap (44% vs 51%) narrows when lottery is included, because lottery draw games are the most popular gambling activity for women. 78% of women who gambled in the past four weeks played lottery draws. Once you strip out lottery, the gender gap nearly doubles.

Online gambling among women grew by 8 percentage points between 2017 and 2021, according to earlier UKGC tracking. The GSGB 2024 data suggests that growth has continued, particularly among women over 35.

A separate analysis by NatCen and the University of Liverpool found a counterintuitive pattern: women who hold online gambling accounts (for slots, casino, bingo, and instant win products) tend to play more often, for longer sessions, and spend more per session than men with equivalent accounts. The gender gap in participation rate masks a different reality at the individual player level.

Game Preferences by Gender

Women and men gravitate toward different gambling formats. The UKGC’s International Women’s Day 2025 data release broke down female gambling activity in detail.

The pattern is consistent across multiple data sources: women favor chance-based, low-interaction formats (lottery, scratchcards, bingo, slots) while men favor skill-based or competitive formats (poker, sports betting, table games). This split shows up in the UKGC data, SOFTSWISS platform reports, and academic literature (Frontiers in Sociology, 2024).

Mobile vs Desktop Usage

Mobile is the dominant channel for female gamblers. 77.4% of online bingo players use mobile devices (WhichBingo 2025 survey), consistent with SOFTSWISS regional data showing 68% to 72% mobile usage across European, Latin American, and Asian markets.

The UKGC’s 2022 research blog noted that online gambling among women increased by 8 percentage points between 2017 and 2021, a period that coincided with widespread smartphone adoption and the launch of mobile-optimized casino apps. Women with busy schedules cite convenience and the ability to play in short sessions as primary reasons for choosing mobile over desktop.

No published dataset currently isolates mobile vs desktop gambling participation by gender with exact percentages. SOFTSWISS reports mobile GGR share by region but does not cross-reference with gender. This remains a data gap across the industry.

Women in Poker

Poker is the gambling format with the widest gender gap. Women make up roughly a third of online casino players and a quarter of sports bettors, but they account for just 3% to 5% of live poker tournament fields in any given year. That ratio has barely moved in over a decade.

The data below covers live tournament demographics, earnings records, online participation estimates, and the structural barriers that keep the gap in place. VIP-Grinders has tracked poker industry trends since 2013 and maintains a dedicated directory of women who changed poker.

Tournament Participation

The largest annual sample for measuring female poker participation is the WSOP Main Event. Pokerfuse’s demographic analysis of the 2025 field provides the most granular recent data.

The 2025 WSOP produced two historic moments for women in poker. Leo Margets (Spain) finished 7th in the Main Event for approximately $1.5M, becoming the first woman to reach the Main Event final table since Barbara Enright in 1995. That gap of 30 years speaks for itself.

Shiina Okamoto (Japan) won the Ladies Championship for the second consecutive year, taking home $184,094 from the record 1,368-player field. The Ladies event uses a $1,000 buy-in for women. Men can enter but must pay $10,000, a structure designed to protect the women-only field that drew controversy in 2025 when a male player won an online satellite into the event.

The online vs live gap is significant. Industry estimates suggest women may comprise 10% to 20% of online poker players (depending on whether the measure includes casual play or only cash game and tournament grinders), compared to the consistent 3% to 5% in live fields.

The 888poker survey of 2,000 UK women found that 32% feel less inclined to play poker because they are women (9% strongly agree). Barriers cited in academic and industry research include perceived bias, smaller competitive networks, and hostile table dynamics.

Top Female Poker Earners

The Hendon Mob Women’s All Time Money List ranks 20,286 female players by verified live tournament earnings. The top five as of early 2026:

Kristen Foxen surpassed Vanessa Selbst as the highest-earning female poker player in history. Her combined total (including online results tracked by CardPlayer) exceeds $15.4M. She also holds five GPI Female Player of the Year titles, more than any other player in the award’s history.

Vanessa Selbst retired from professional poker in 2018 with $11.9M in live earnings and three WSOP bracelets. She remains the second highest-earning woman and one of the most decorated tournament players of either gender.

The $1.5M gap between #1 and #2 is notable. Below Selbst, earnings drop sharply: the #3 to #5 players sit between $2.8M and $6.4M. The concentration at the top reflects both the small number of women competing at high stakes and the variance in tournament outcomes over long careers.

Barriers to Entry

The question is not whether women can compete at the highest levels. Foxen, Selbst, Margets, and others have answered that. The question is why participation stays locked at 3% to 5% of live fields despite poker’s growth overall.

The WSOP’s Ladies Championship structure is one attempt to address the gap. Women-only tournaments, coaching programs (such as the Poker Power initiative), and increased media visibility of female pros like Foxen and Margets are all working to shift the ratio. But the data shows the floor has held at 3% to 5% for over a decade, and structural change is slow.

Women at Crypto Casinos

Crypto casinos represent one of the fastest-growing segments of online gambling. The question of how many women play at these platforms has a single reliable data point, and the answer may be higher than most people expect.

Female Player Share in Crypto Gambling

The only published platform-level gender breakdown for crypto casinos comes from SOFTSWISS, which aggregates data from over 700 partner brands. Their Q1 2023 State of Crypto report found:

That 35% female share is notably higher than the 18% female share SOFTSWISS reported for its European regional casino data over the same period. The difference may reflect how gender disclosure works on these platforms: the regional data had roughly 35% of players listed as “undisclosed,” while the crypto-specific report appears to measure only those who identified their gender.

This matters because gender disclosure is not mandatory at registration on most online casinos. Published female shares are best understood as “share of those who disclosed,” not of all players. The real figure could be higher or lower depending on which gender is more likely to skip that field.

What Draws Women to Crypto Casinos

No published study directly measures why women choose crypto casinos over fiat alternatives. The evidence is indirect, drawn from academic work on online gambling behavior and platform design.

These are plausible drivers, not confirmed causes. No researcher has directly surveyed women at crypto casinos about their choice of platform. This is one of the largest evidence gaps in the field, and filling it would require operator-level survey data that platforms have not published.

The crypto casino market itself is growing rapidly. Tracked onchain deposit volume across 24 major operators reached $42 billion over the trailing 12 months through March 2026, up 89.4% year on year (Tanzanite.xyz). If the 35% female share from SOFTSWISS holds roughly constant, that implies significant and growing female participation in crypto gambling, but that projection should be treated as directional, not precise.

Women in Sports Betting

Sports betting is the gambling format where female participation is growing fastest. The combination of US state-by-state legalization (post-PASPA 2018), mobile betting apps, and the rise of women’s professional sports has driven a measurable shift in who bets and how.

Participation Rates

Multiple surveys converge on a similar range for the female share of US sports bettors, though the exact figure depends on methodology.

The US figure of 26% to 31% represents a significant increase from pre-legalization levels. The AGA reported that female Super Bowl wagering grew 51% from 2023 to 2024, one of the sharpest single-year jumps in any gambling demographic.

In Florida, which legalized online sports betting in 2023, the number of female sports bettors increased 9-fold compared to the pre-legalization period (FCCG 888-ADMIT-IT helpline data, 2024). Men still accounted for 97% of total Florida bettors by volume, but the growth rate among women was dramatic.

Brazil stands out globally. Statista Consumer Insights data for 2024 to 2025 puts the female share of Brazilian sports bettors at roughly 47%, the highest of any major regulated market. Brazil launched its formal sports betting regulatory framework in January 2025.

Do Women Outperform Men?

The most cited finding on this topic comes from an 888 Holdings analysis of New Jersey sports bettors, published in 2020. The headline result: female bettors achieved a 19.79% ROI while male bettors posted a negative 4.6% return over the analysis period.

The age breakdown added detail. Women aged 25 to 34 returned +127% ROI. Women aged 35 to 44 returned +129.6%. At both ends, the pattern reversed: women aged 18 to 24 lost 34% to 43%, and women over 65 lost 82.2%.

Beyond ROI, the behavioral data paints a consistent picture across multiple sources:

Women’s Sport Betting Is Accelerating

One of the clearest trends in the data is the growth of betting on women’s professional sports, driven primarily by the WNBA and women’s soccer.

The growth in women’s sport betting creates a feedback loop. More betting interest drives more broadcast coverage, which drives more fan engagement, which drives more betting. The Washington Post noted that sports betting has been one of the most effective financial catalysts for women’s professional leagues, generating revenue and visibility that traditional sponsorship models struggled to deliver.

Women and Risk-Taking: What the Data Shows

The gambling statistics above show what women do. This section explores why. The following research on women and strategic risk-taking was first published by VIP-Grinders in May 2025 and has been cited by Forbes, Digital Journal, IT-Daily, Estado de Minas, and other publications.

A study found that female sports bettors achieved an impressive average return on investment (ROI) of almost 20%, while their male counterparts experienced an average loss of 5%.

For generations, women have been deemed biologically more risk-averse than men. But is that really the case?

To debunk the myth, experts at VIP-Grinders teamed up with Niloufar Esmaeilpour, registered clinical counsellor and founder of Lotus Therapy, to explore how women aren’t less risk-averse. They’re more risk-aware and, in fact, strategic risk-takers.

Key findings

Breaking the myth: Women are strategic risk-takers, NOT risk-averse

The data challenges a long-held assumption. Across multiple studies, the evidence points in the same direction: women take risks differently, not less often.

Traditional studies define risk too narrowly

The theory that women are more risk-averse than men has been cemented by decades of economic and psychological studies that define risk through a narrow, male-centric lens, focusing on behaviours like extreme sports or competitive physical challenges.

What’s often overlooked is that women do take risks, just different kinds. These are often calculated, strategic, and come with broader, long-term implications.

Women’s high-stakes choices are overlooked

Decisions like undergoing cosmetic surgery or launching a business while raising a family involve significant, multifaceted risks: physical, emotional, financial and social. Yet, these kinds of high-stakes decisions are rarely acknowledged in traditional risk research.

New research shows no gender gap in risk-taking at work

A 2022 study published in Psychology of Women Quarterly found no significant gender differences in workplace risk-taking.

A separate Journal of Business Research study revealed that female executives are often more willing than their male counterparts to invest in long-term, high-stakes projects like R&D and capital expenditures. These aren’t guaranteed wins: they carry substantial financial risk and delayed returns, but are critical for long-term growth.

The takeaway is clear: Women aren’t risk-averse, they’re risk-smart.

Women approach risk with a long-term strategy

While this decision may not seem flashy or reckless, it is incredibly bold, especially considering the pressures from investors and shareholders.

Women often consider the downstream effect of their decisions: how they affect team dynamics, organisational culture, or even the ethical consequences. This nuanced, multifaceted approach to risk is not a sign of timidity, but of strategic depth.

Structural pressures shape how women take risks

Women are often under the microscope and held to different standards, especially in leadership roles. A 2019 Harvard Business Review article noted that female leaders are more likely to be penalised for failure.

What may appear as caution is often a smart, calibrated response to these uneven expectations, balancing risk with the need to protect morale, manage culture, and meet societal demands.

Telma Casaca, Marketing Director at VIP-Grinders, commented:

“For too long, the myth has been perpetuated that women are risk-averse. However, new research and real-world examples show that women are, in fact, risk-smart and approach challenges with deep strategic foresight. Risk-averse is far from accurate.

When women take risks, they aren’t reckless. They carefully weigh all the variables. It’s about playing the long game and creating a sustainable future, not just for themselves, but for the organisations and communities they impact. Whether in business, sports, or social justice, the lessons from these trailblazing women are a testament to the power of strategic risk-taking.”

8 famous female risk-takers

From boardrooms to boxing rings, these women didn’t just take chances. They redefined what bold risk-taking looks like.

Women and Problem Gambling

The data on female gambling participation tells a growth story. The data on female problem gambling tells a different one. Women are less likely than men to develop gambling problems overall, but when they do, the progression is often faster and the barriers to getting help are higher.

The Telescoping Effect

One of the most studied gender differences in problem gambling is the “telescoping effect”: the observation that women tend to start gambling later in life but progress from recreational to disordered gambling faster than men.

The strongest modern evidence comes from a 2022 tracked-behaviour study by Leino et al., published in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. The study followed 184,113 Norwegian electronic gaming machine (EGM) players (27% women) using actual transaction data rather than self-reported surveys.

The pattern is clear: women started gambling later (age 46 vs 40) but reached their first loss-limit breach 9 months sooner than men. The hazard ratio of 1.22 held after controlling for age, meaning the faster progression is not simply explained by older players being more vulnerable.

Earlier clinical studies support the same direction. Tavares et al. (2003) found women progressed faster from social to intense to disordered gambling, particularly in electronic bingo and video lottery terminals. Grant et al. (2012) found shorter time from gambling onset to clinical diagnosis in a sample of 71 patients seeking treatment.

Problem Gambling Rates by Gender

The UK Gambling Commission’s GSGB 2024 data provides the most recent population-level estimates of problem gambling by gender, using the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI).

The lower overall rate masks an important nuance. Research by Håkansson (2020, Frontiers in Psychiatry) found that among online gamblers specifically, gender differences in problem gambling rates narrow or disappear entirely. Women’s chance-based online play (slots, instant win games) was strongly associated with problem gambling and internalizing symptoms like depression and anxiety.

This connects directly to the participation data earlier in this page. Women are increasingly gambling online, on mobile, in short sessions, on chance-based games. These are exactly the formats where the gender gap in problem gambling is smallest.

Help-Seeking and Stigma

Women face distinct barriers when seeking help for gambling problems. The data from GamCare (the UK’s National Gambling Helpline) and GambleAware research paints a consistent picture.

The 39% stigma figure is the most important number in this table. Nearly four in ten women with gambling problems who said they would not seek treatment cited embarrassment as the reason. This suggests the true prevalence of female problem gambling is higher than helpline data indicates.

GamCare’s Women’s Programme, run in partnership with Refuge, trained 3,813 professionals on gambling-related harm among women in 2023/24. The programme specifically addresses the intersection of gambling harm and domestic abuse, a connection supported by Australian research (Hing et al., 2022) documenting cycles between gambling and intimate partner violence.

33% of women in GamCare treatment data cite escapism as their primary motivation for gambling. GambleAware research (conducted with IFF Research and the University of Bristol) found that loneliness and depression are stronger predictors of problem gambling in women than in men, while men are more likely to cite competition and adrenaline.

Resources

If you or someone you know is experiencing gambling-related harm, the following services provide free, confidential support.

Women in the Gambling Industry

The data above covers women as players. This section covers women as employees. The gambling industry’s workforce gender split tells its own story: roughly balanced at entry level, heavily male at the top.

Workforce Gender Gap

The most detailed industry-wide workforce data comes from the All-In Diversity Project (AiDP), which publishes the All-Index benchmarking report. The most recent fully published edition covers 2021/22 and draws from 40 organizations representing approximately 140,000 employees across 16 jurisdictions.

The pattern is consistent across industries, but the drop-off in gambling is particularly steep. Women go from near-parity at entry level (~48%) to less than 20% at CEO level. The AiDP noted that the overall gender gap actually widened between 2019/2020 (roughly 50/50) and 2021/22 (56/43), driven partly by the rise of sports-betting talent demands in male-dominated technical roles.

By 2023/24, AiDP commentary indicated the ratio had shifted further toward 65:35 male to female across the industry. HR functions remain approximately 70% female, while technical and product roles skew heavily male.

Leadership and Pay

The American Gaming Association’s Diversity in Gaming Workforce Report (April 2022, covering 26 commercial, tribal, and manufacturer operators) provides a US-specific view.

One regulatory driver may accelerate change. The EU Women on Boards Directive requires 40% of non-executive board positions to be held by women by 2026. Gambling companies licensed in EU jurisdictions are working toward this target, though compliance timelines vary by member state.

The top-scoring organization in the AiDP 2021/22 All-Index was Sky Betting and Gaming (85 out of 100), followed by Kindred Group (79 out of 100). These scores reflect not just gender ratios but also policies on parental leave, flexible working, pay transparency, and inclusion initiatives.

Regional Data Snapshot

The data throughout this page draws from multiple countries. This section consolidates the key regional figures into a single reference, highlighting where each market differs and what makes each dataset useful.

United Kingdom

The UK has the most detailed public dataset on gendered gambling behavior. The Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) runs quarterly waves with roughly 5,000 respondents each and an annual aggregate above 19,000. It is the benchmark source used throughout this page.

The UK also produces the strongest problem gambling data by gender (PGSI scores by sex), the most detailed helpline data (GamCare), and the most active responsible gambling research programme (GambleAware). No other country publishes gender-disaggregated gambling data at this level of granularity.

United States

US data is strongest on sports betting, where the AGA tracks participation around major events. The post-PASPA expansion has created natural experiments: Florida’s 9-fold increase in female sports bettors after legalization is the clearest example of how regulatory change drives female participation.

The US lacks a single national gambling survey equivalent to the UK’s GSGB. The NCPG’s NGAGE 3.0 (April 2024) is the closest, but it does not break most metrics by gender. State-level data varies widely in quality and availability. Our US Gambling Survey 2026 (n=2,000) provides a gender breakdown across wins, losses, frequency, funding sources, and concealment behavior, filling several of those gaps.

Australia

The AGRC National Gambling Prevalence Study Pilot (2024, n=3,881) is Australia’s freshest dataset. It found that 65% of Australian adults gambled in the past year, up 8 percentage points from 2019. Weekly gambling rates show a clear gender split: 48% of men versus 28% of women.

One data point unique to Australia: 19% of partners of weekly-or-more gamblers reported experiencing intimate partner violence (AGRC, 2024). This is the only national-level dataset that directly links gambling frequency to domestic violence outcomes.

Sweden

Sweden’s Spelinspektionen 2024 survey found that 67% of women gambled in 2024 versus 75% of men (71% overall). The most distinctive finding: 42% of unregistered (account-less) gamblers were women versus 24% of men, suggesting women interact more casually with gambling, favoring lottery tickets and retail scratchcards over registered online accounts.

Sweden also operates Spelpaus.se, the national self-exclusion register. As of Q4 2025, roughly 134,500 individuals were self-excluded. Gender breakdowns of Spelpaus registrations have not been published.

Brazil

Brazil is the global outlier. Statista Consumer Insights data for 2024 to 2025 puts the female share of Brazilian sports bettors at roughly 47%, nearly double the US figure and the highest of any major regulated market.

Brazil launched its formal sports betting framework under Normative Ordinance No. 615/2024 in January 2025. The regulation explicitly bans cryptocurrency as a payment method for licensed gambling operators. All deposits and withdrawals must flow through institutions authorized by the Central Bank of Brazil.

Expert Commentary

The data across this page reveals a consistent pattern: women gamble differently, not less. The participation gap is narrowing in most formats, the behavioral data suggests more selective and strategic wagering, and the barriers that remain are structural, not about ability or interest.

Telma Casaca, Marketing Director at VIP-Grinders, connects the findings:

“The numbers tell a clear story. Women now make up a third of online casino players and a quarter of sports bettors, yet they’re still just 4% of live poker fields. That’s not a skill gap. That’s an environment gap.

What stands out most to me after 13 years tracking this industry at VIP-Grinders is how the 888 Holdings ROI data and the risk-taking research point in the same direction. Women bet less often, but when they do, they’re more selective. They weigh variables, manage bankrolls tighter, and avoid emotional chasing. The data calls that ‘risk-smart.’ I’d call it disciplined.

The problem gambling data is the part that needs more attention. Women progress to disordered gambling faster, and 39% of those who need help won’t seek it because of stigma. That’s nearly four in ten women suffering in silence. If the industry is serious about responsible gambling, it needs to design support systems that account for how women actually experience harm, not just scale what works for men.”

Methodology & Sources

This page combines primary data from government regulators, platform operators, academic researchers, and industry bodies. No single source covers all aspects of women and gambling. The table below lists every primary source referenced in this report, what it measures, and where to verify the underlying data.

Primary Sources

Data Quality Notes

Update Schedule

This page is part of the VIP-Grinders research programme and is updated annually. Key refresh triggers:

If you are a journalist, researcher, or analyst using data from this page, contact Telma Casaca at VIP-Grinders for verification, additional context, or access to the underlying data references.