A high level gambling analysis group says the growth in the percentage of women and young people participating in online gaming in the UK is down largely to the dynamics of the internet itself.

The Society for the study of gambling focused on the recent ECOGRA global online gambler survey and came up with the following key observations.

In relation to more women playing games such as poker they said there were a number of factors for this.

These include:

1. The “de-masculinisation” of gambling – gambling is becoming more acceptable
for women, especially in the context of heavy media exposure of female poker
celebrities (e.g. Hollywood actress Jennifer Tilly);
2. The Internet provides a great learning environment for women – playing for free
means females can learn to play very cheaply. The
Internet also permits anonymity for those novices who would have been afraid to
make mistakes offline.
3. Women claim that the internet provides a high level of security, privacy and
convenience that is not available in real environments offline.

Despite some claims that online poker has reached its peak in terms of
popularity, findings from this study may have different implications. Younger players are
playing Internet poker and older players are playing at Internet casinos. It is hard to tell if
this is an age effect or a cohort effect. However the Society’s findings suggest that such differences may be a result of both, given that younger people have:

1. Larger social networks which may fuel the acquisition and maintenance of poker
behaviours (e.g. home games);
2. More exposure to, and be potentially more influenced by, media coverage of
poker (e.g. televised games; celebrity poker events etc.);
3. More time to play poker (argued to be more time consuming than playing at
Internet casinos) as a result of having less responsibilities.