Is Gambling Macho? Do Men Really Bet More Than Women And Is The Industry Sexist?
Watch virtually any gambling advert on TV and you’ll see men chatting men about upcoming sporting events. Perhaps it’s an advert where one of the men tells you they know what they’re talking about because their hunch always comes off but the other thinks you’re betting doing research and having some expertise.
Maybe it’s one where a famous man tells you to put a bet on and do so responsibly. Whatever the advert, one thing you can bet on, no pun intended, is the fact that it will be men talking in a way that suggests they’re aiming their comments at other men.
Is that reflective of the fact that it’s mostly men that gamble, or is it more of a representation of the society that we live in today, where equality continues to be fought for but hasn’t yet been achieved?
Is it a natural thing that men would find themselves leaning towards gambling as a pursuit because of the testosterone, the need to ‘compete’ and the desire to ‘win’ being more prevalent in males? Is one part of gambling more typically a male pursuit than another? Finally, is it right that gambling is seen as a masculine hobby, if that is indeed the case?
The Majority Of Problem Gamblers Are Men
Research suggests that men are nearly eight times more likely to become problem gamblers than women, despite the fact that the numbers show that men and women gamble nearly the same amount overall. Around 66% of all men gambled on something, including the lottery, whereas the figure was 59% for women – hardly a marked difference. Why, then, is it that male gamblers are far more likely to develop a problem than women?
Dr Robert Lefever opened the UK’s first clinic for compulsive gamblers and believes that it’s most down to men’s personality traits. He thinks that men are more likely to take risks than women, following the risk up with a sense of pride at having taken it in the first place. A former gambling addict himself, Dr. Lefever recounts how he once bet three months’ worth of his income on a single card hand when playing poker.
Dr Lefever believes that the main things that contribute to gambling are genetic, sociological and an exposure to the world of betting. When it comes to the final one of those three, he points out that gambling has been tied closely to sport more and more in recent years, which is problematic because more men attend major sporting events than women.
You only need to look at the abuse some female presenters and pundits get to know that football is still very much a male dominated environment, for example.
Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones feels that men are more impulsive than women, therefore being likely to chase their losses more than women. In 2017 it was revealed that gambling adverts featured in 95% of the ad breaks shown during live football, with men likely to watch around 20,000 hours of sport during their lives. Women, on the other hand, will likely watch around half that amount on average. That means that men are far more likely to watch gambling adverts, which are already being targeted at them and thereby increasing the likelihood that they’ll place a bet or two.
In Sweden, Females Overtake Males In The Gambling Addiction Stakes
At the start of April 2019 the Swedish health authority confirmed that women had overtaken men for the first time in terms of gambling addicts. Around 45,000 people in Sweden at the time were thought to have had a gambling problem, of which 64% were women. Given that it was just 18% in 2015, it’s fair to say that the shift in numbers also resulted in a shift in narrative.
The surge in numbers was considered to be due to the movement towards online gambling, which has allowed women to get involved in something that was considered to be male dominated when it was done more publicly. Whilst overall numbers of those with a problem when it came to gambling had dropped, the number of women who had been enjoying placing bets had been increasing over the decade prior.
Just shy of 1.5% of Sweden’s overall population fit into the category of people that either have a gambling problem or at moderate risk of developing one. That amounts to around 100,000 people, with an additional 225,000 people having some risk of developing a problem with gambling. According to Professor Anders Håkansson, the majority of women admitting that they have a problem say that they’ve played online casino games, as opposed to men that tend to opt for the likes of poker and horse racing.
Is It Different For Bingo and Casino Gambling?
Men are, by their very nature, risk-takers. They gamble as much for the excitement of the risk of losing as the possibly of winning. The idea of competing with others and winning, therefore leading to their competitor losing, is part of the appeal for some men. It’s why men are more likely to bet on sports and are also keen to investigate the in-play markets. Women, on the other hand, tend to gamble for enjoyment and fun above all else.
That’s why women tend to opt for the likes of bingo more than betting on football or other live events. It’s the fun provided by the subject that appeals to female gamblers, so getting involved in an environment where they can chat to other players and see the game develop, as is the case with bingo, is ideal. Women are also more inclined to play slot machines than men, whilst male gamblers are more likely to get involved in the world of card games like poker or strategic games such as roulette.
The likelihood is, therefore, that men will get involved with sportsbook betting and casino games whereas women are more inclined to enjoy non-strategic games that are less interpersonal in nature. Obviously that’s not to say that the opposite sex never gets involved in the games that are favoured by one gender over the other, but it’s certainly true that there are specific betting habits that split between men and woman.
Online Gambling Is Changing The Game
One thing that’s worth bearing in mind is that the move to online gambling over the past decade or so is changing the game when it comes to who bets on what.
In the past, betting shops were seen as being typically ‘male environments’, whilst women tended to gravitate more towards bingo halls. Certainly in the early days of the betting shop, after they first opened their doors on the high street in 1961, they were specifically designed to discourage people from going into them in the first place.
Filled with smoke and with blacked out windows so that people on the outside couldn’t see in, betting shops were very much the male preserve. Indeed, many felt that they looked more like the office of an undertaker than any sort of shop that you could buy a service within the doors of. Even as they began to take on a more corporate appearance over the years, that early sense of them being places for the brave prevailed. The same could also be said for casinos, which were the locale for mobsters and criminals in their early years, especially in America.
When online gambling began to develop, therefore, the ability to place a bet from the comfort of your own home came about with it. It also allowed punters to be secretive about what they were up to, with the majority of bookmakers developing apps that could be used on mobile phones without anyone else being any the wiser. It essentially levelled the playing field when it comes to gambling. Women no longer feel that they can’t enter a betting shop or place a wager in a casino, instead being able to do both from their living room or on the way to work.
It has also led to a gradual increase in the number of women who are considered to be problem gamblers as well, of course. Women tend to gamble more as a form of escapism, getting caught up in the virtual reality world of online sites. The problem is that that feeling of virtual reality also leads many to feel as though it’s not real and their debts aren’t really there. Kelly Field found herself in that situation, racking up £70,000 worth of debts, blaming adverts on TV that ‘glamorised’ the hobby by using celebrity endorsements.
The opposite is also true, of course. More men have begun playing bingo since the game made the move online. As recently as 2010 only around 6% of online bingo players were men, but that has moved closer to 25% in the years since.
Adverts Are Aimed At Men
As suggested during the introduction to the piece, the majority of gambling adverts are aimed at men. The bookmaker Ladbrokes inadvertently showed us as much when they released adverts featuring celebrities that started off with the declaration “Lads, lads, lads” before tagging on the follow-up of “and everybody”.
Perhaps it’s simply because of the company’s name begging with the word Lads, but it’s fair to say that some women online were surprised to be told that they could also bet.
That’s not to say that no gambling adverts are targeting a female audience, however. The interesting thing is that the majority of those that seem to be rather specifically aimed at women are for bingo and tend to be on during the day rather than when the major sporting events are taking place. Is this just a matter of bookmakers aiming adverts at their target audience, or is it a case of everyday sexism in plain sight?
Equally, you might argue that bingo adverts are often aimed at women because these are just private companies marketing to their target audiences. Others, however, would say the adverts in themselves perpetuate the cycle that leads to bingo being seen as a woman’s game.
Online betting is certainly leveling the playing field but old habits die hard and it will be a long time yet before gambling is portrayed on an equal footing.
