The women taking the gambling industry by storm
The gambling industry is a global behemoth that just last year generated total revenues of $536 billion, with an expected growth rate of 7%. That makes global gambling a bigger financial player than all but 25 countries on the planet.
The gambling industry sector has exhibited the highest level of growth in recent years, and it is online casinos. Several companies are doing similar things, opening more online casinos and appealing to an often underrepresented demographic: female players.
Why female players are underrepresented is something of a misnomer. According to the statistics, the gender split amongst the player base of online casinos sits very close to 50-50. As Casino.org investigates, many sweepstakes casinos are specifically trying to attract female players with branding and games aimed at females so they can diversify their portfolios and reach out to more customers.
In addition to that, there are a number of high-profile women shaping the industry at the highest level, a selection of which we have profiled below for you.
Denise Coates
If you were to ask a random person to name the spiritual home of gambling, chances are they would say Las Vegas. Whilst that is the right answer stereotypically, it’s factually the wrong answer. The spiritual home of modern gambling is the United Kingdom.
It was the first country with a major economy to legalize and license online casino gambling and sports betting in the mid-noughties, and since then has been the standard bearer for modern gambling. Britain is full of entrepreneurs, and this is no different in the gambling scene.
One of the biggest names in the British gambling industry is Denise Coates, the CEO of BET365 and a woman with a reported net worth of $7.7 billion. During her time at BET365, Coates has transformed the company into a world leader – despite posting losses last year, the company still generated a staggering £3.9 billion in revenue! These figures have ensured she is an inspiration to many women trying to break into a male-dominated industry.
(Denise Coates is the world’s highest-paid business executive.)
Sarah Harrison
Periodically, a plethora of opinion pieces are generated about the success of the British gambling industry. Typically, several explanations are proffered, but the main one that seems to be missed by so many is the role that the Gambling Commission has played.
The organization provides a framework to license and regulate the industry, without which there wouldn’t be the same level of trust in British gambling as there currently is. The Gambling Commission is always used as the blueprint for countries considering online gambling legalization for good reason.
Sarah Harrison, former Commissioner of the Gambling Commission, has played an enormous role in continuing the success of British online gambling and reinforcing the level of trust that British gamblers place in their own domestic providers.
Amy Howe
Sports betting and online gambling have been largely legalized in the United States for the better part of the last five years. It is only recently, though, that we have started to see the first few shorts of growth in the fledgling industry, with companies establishing their reputations and slowly expanding their offering to customers.
One of the biggest names to emerge in that sector recently is FanDuel which is now a leading name in online sportsbooks, fantasy sports, and online casinos. The current executive running the ship is Amy Howe.
Starting out her career in the world of financial service management and music, Howe was appointed as COO of Ticketmaster North America in 2015 before branching out into gambling with FanDuel in 2020, where she is now President.
Repeatedly Howe has been recognized as one of the most influential people, let alone women, in the various industries in which she has worked. Her expertise and level of dedication to the task at hand are sure to give FanDuel an advantage in the business battles that lay ahead.
(Amy Howe is optimistic about the future of FanDuel.)
Beyond business
It’s not just in the boardroom where women excel in the gambling industry but on the tables too. The list of successful female poker players, online gambling influencers, and commentators is endless.
To name one or two at the end of this article would simply be disrespectful to those not included. In lieu of that, please leave the name of your favorite female gambling personality below and we can perhaps cover them in more detail in future articles.
