While the popularity of poker has grown considerably over the last few years globally, the game is still dominated by male poker players. If you look at the winners of some of the biggest and most popular poker tournaments such as the World Series of Poker or the World Poker Tour you will find that the majority of winners are always male.
888 Poker Pro Jessica Dawley believes that this trend will change in the next couple of years and more women will start playing on the live poker scene. Dawley believes that there are a number of women from all over the world who are interested in playing poker but prefer to play online poker from the comfort of their home.
Dawley states that it is extremely challenging to sit at a final table playing live poker as its mostly dominated by men who do their best to intimidate a female poker player as they generally tend to believe she is not as strong as the other male opponents at the table. To avoid this kind of intimidation and pressure scenarios, most women prefer to play online poker and remain anonymous.
Dawley has been playing professional poker for the past few years and has done reasonably well so far. She has won a total of $133,674 in prize money playing live poker with her biggest win coming at the 2010 Aussie Millions Poker Championship where she finished in 17th place and won $69,222. She has also secured a sponsorship deal with 888 poker and gets to travel the world and represent the 888 brand. One of her goals as a 888 poker representative is to encourage more women to start playing poker.
Poker companies in the past have generally tended to hire women for their looks and sex appeal in order to target male customers and promote poker. Dawley believes that this trend is slowly changing as events like the Poker Night In America (PNIA) Ladies Night provide inspiration to a female audience and encourage them to take up poker.
In a statement, Dawley said
While the percentage of women may be low compared to the overall population of poker players, it has been increasing in recent years. Clearly, women are an untapped market and online poker sites such as 888poker have certainly opened the door for us to join in on the game. 888 is doing a great job at marketing to women and we get tremendous turnouts to ladies events and promotions
