Are Women or Men Better Gamblers?

The battle of the sexes has raged on for many years with experts debating on whether men or women are better at various activities. Things like taking tests, driving, and losing weight often spark arguments on which sex is the better half when it comes to performance.

However, one thing that doesn’t get tossed into this discussion a whole lot is the subject of gambling. And this is a very interesting subject since many people stereotypically assume that men are far better at gambling than women. But in reality, the truth might shock some.

It’s no secret that both men and women like to gamble since this can see this at any casino. But over the years, it has also been common to see a larger majority of men inside of casinos which has lead to a lot of stereotypes regarding sexes and gambling. The first and most obvious stereotype is that men are superior gamblers to women because they do it more often. This line of thinking comes from past decades where men tended to dominate casinos in terms of numbers.

Another stereotype about sexes and gambling is that the men are way better at table games since women don’t play them. Instead, women supposedly play the slots, video poker, and bingo while their men are at the tables. One more common stereotype is that women can’t effectively manage their bankroll since the average female isn’t as experienced at gambling.

Of course, you’ll find these stereotypes to be very narrow-minded and untrue according to what researchers have discovered.

Wanting to settle the question of who is the fairer sex when it comes to gambling, the Harvard Medical School set up a big study involving 40,499 people. Author Richard LaBrie and a team of researchers from all over the world gave both men and women a certain amount of euros to wager on various casino games. After everything was finished, LaBrie was able to determine that the study seemed to, “favor women as exhibiting more effective sports gambling behavior than men.”

According to the study, women were more aggressive than men when it came to high stakes betting after risking an average of 15 more euros and were able to get 15% more bets in than men in the allotted time period. Sticking with the number 15, the study also concluded that women made 15% more money than the men which dispelled many of the previously mentioned stereotypes.

We no longer live in the 1950’s and women are getting out and gambling quite frequently these days. They’re not sticking to the slots and video poker machines and, as the study suggests, they know what they’re doing on the tables. And, if you go by what Harvard says, women may have even surpassed their fellow male gamblers in terms of managing their bankrolls more effectively.

What the study doesn’t show is that women are just as active in online gambling too. Research analyst Larry Terwander pointed this out when he said, “What you are finding is that women have educated themselves through the Internet on the various forms of gambling that are available. Many of these women have played games online, learned them, and then took that knowledge with them to local casinos.”

Apparently, this knowledge has paid off since women proved to be the better gamblers in the largest study done on the subject of whether men or women are better. It would be great to see some more studies like this conducted in the future but, for now, the numbers suggest that women carry the bragging rights for being the more skilled gamblers.